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CANADIAN HEROES SERIES 

THE STORY OF 
ISAAC BROCK 

" The Story of Isaac Brock " 
is the first volume of the 
"Canadian Heroes Series" 
for children, published under 
the auspices of the Ontario 
Library Association, and 
recommended by the In- 
spector of Public Libraries. 

TO BE FOLLOWED BY 
OTHER VO LUMES 



THE STORY OF 

ISAAC BROCK 



HERO, DEFENDER AND SAVIOUR OF 

UPPER CANADA 
1812 



WALTER R. NURSEY 

n 



' By his unrivalled skill, by great 
And veteran service to the state, 
By worth adored, 
He stood, in high dignity, 
The proudest knight of chivalry. 
Knight of the Sword." 

— Coplas dc Manrique. 



Second Edition 



Toronto 
WILLIAM BRIGGS 

1909 



^' 






Copyright, Canada, 1908, by Walter R. Nuf 






First Edition published December 31st, 1908. 
Second Edition published August, 1909. 



A WORD TO THE READER 



That Isaac Brock is entitled to rank as the foremost 
defender of the flag Western Canada has ever seen, is a 
statement which no one familiar with history can deny. 
Brock fought and won out when the odds were all against 
him. 

At a time when almost every British soldier was busy 
fighting Napoleon in Europe, upon General Brock fell 
the responsibility of upholding Britain's honour in 
America. He was " the man behind the gun " — the undis- 
mayed man — when the integrity of British America was 
threatened by a determined enemy. 

His success can be measured by the fact that it is only 
since the war of 1812-14 that the British flag has been 
properly respected in the western hemisphere. It is also 
a fact that after the capture of Detroit the Union Jack 
became more firmly rooted in the affections of the Cana- 
dian people than ever. 

It must not be forgotten that the capture of this strong- 
hold was almost as far-reaching in its ultimate effect as the 
victory of Wolfe on the Plains of Abraham, and was 
fraught with little, if any, less import to Canada. 

ill 



A Word to the Reader 

What with the timidity of Prevost, and the tactical 
blunders of both himself and Sheaffe, the immediate influ- 
ence upon the enemy of the victories at Detroit and 
Queenston was almost nullified. Had Brock survived 
Queenston, or even had his fixed, militant policy been 
allowed to prevail from the first, it is safe to say there 
would have been no armistice, no placating of a clever, 
intriguing foe, and no two years' prolongation of the war. 
Had the capitulation of Detroit, the crushing defeat at 
Queenston, and the wholesale desertion of Wadsworth's 
cowardly legions at Lewiston, been followed up by the 
British with relentless assault " all along the line " — 
before the enemy had time to recover his grip — then our 
hero's feasible plan, which he had pleaded with Prevost 
to permit, namely, to sweep the Niagara frontier and 
destroy Sackett's Harbour — the key to United States naval 
supremacy of the lakes — could, there is no good reason to 
doubt, have been carried out. The purpose of this little 
book is not, however, to deal in surmises. 

The story of Sir Isaac Brock's life should convey to the 
youth of Canada a significance similar to that which the 
bugle-call of the trumpeter, sounding the advance, conveys 
to the soldier in the ranks. Reiteration of Brock's deeds 
should help to develop a better appreciation of his work, 
a truer conception of his heroism, a wiser understanding 
of his sacrifice. 

Many a famous man owes a debt of inspiration to some 

iv 



A Word to the Reader 

other great life that went before him. Not until every boy 
in Canada is thoroughly familiar with " Master Isaac's " 
achievements will he be qualified to exclaim with the 
Indian warrior, Tecumseh, 

" THIS IS A MAN." 

W. R. K 

Toronto, October, 1908. 

Note. — Of the hundred and more books and documents con- 
sulted in a search for facts I would register my special obliga- 
tions to Tupper's "Life of Brock"; Auchinleck's "History of 
the War of 1812-14"; Cruikshank's "Documentary History," 
Richardson's "War of 1812" (edited by Casselman) ; and in 
respect to incidents especially connected with Col. James Fitz- 
Gibbon — " the faithful sergeant-major " — to " A Veteran of 1812," 
by Miss Mary Agnes FitzGibbon, his granddaughter. 



PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION 



In issuing this second edition within five months of the 
publication of the first, it seems well to emphasize the fact 
that though this is a " story-book " it is also a book of 
" history." Every statement of historic import is founded 
upon fact. Authorities, however, have not been cited, 
believing that foot-notes would deter perusal by boys and 
girls, and so rob the book of its primary purpose. 

In the case of dialogue, also, though the conversations 
as detailed are more or less imaginary, authority exists for 



Preface to the Second Edition 

every statement. In Brock's speeches to his staff before 
the fights at both Detroit and Queenston, the views pre- 
sented are his own, unearthed after an analysis of letters 
and official documents. It has merely been a case of put- 
ting flesh upon dry bones. 

It is gratifying to know that, incomplete as this " story " 
necessarily is, it has met with a kindly reception from 
grown-ups as well as young people, and is achieving the 
purpose for which it was written. 

It may be of interest to note that an " American edi- 
tion " has been published to meet a call from the United 
States, where Isaac Brock, though recognized as an un- 
compromising foeman, is accepted as a splendid example 
of patriot, administrator and soldier, sans peur et sans 
reproche. 

In saluting the Press and other appreciative critics, I 
borrow the Siwash greeting, " Klahowyah," and for the 
clever and admirable co-operation of publishers, artists 
and experts of the press-room I proclaim deep obligation, 
wholly aware that without their aid the book would rank 
no better than porridge without cream or bread without 
butter. 

W. R. K 

Toronto, June, 1909. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER 
I. 

II. 

III. 

IV. 

V. 

VI. 

VII. 

VIII. 

IX. 

X. 

XI. 

XII. 

XIII. 

XIV. 

XV. 

XVI. 

XVII. 

XVIII. 

XIX. 

XX. 

XXI. 

XXII. 



Our Hero's Home — Guernsey 

School and Pastimes .... 

From Ensign to Colonel 

Egmont-op-Zee and Copenhagen . 

Brock in Canada 

Bridle-Road, Batteau and Canoe 

Mutiny and Desertion .... 

France, the United States and Canada 

Fur-Traders and Habitants . 

The Massacre at Mackinaw . 

Little York, Niagara, Amherstburg . 

Major-General Brock, Governor of Upper 
Canada 



The War Cloud 

The United States of America Declares War 

Brock Accepts Hull's Challenge 

"En Avant, Detroit ! " . 

Our Hero Meets Tecumseh 

An Indian Pow-wow 

The Attack on Detroit 

Brock's Victory 

Chagrin in the United States 

Prevost's Armistice 

vii 



PAGE 

11 

16 
21 

27 
36 
40 
47 
52 
55 
59 
64 

72 

75 

80 

87 

92 

96 

100 

105 

109 

112 

117 



Contents 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XXIII. "Hero, Defender, Saviour" .... 121 

XXIV. Brock's Last Council . 
XXV. The Midnight Gallop . 

XXVI. The Attack on the Redan . 
XXVII. Van Rensselaer's Camp 
XXVIII. A Foreign Flag Flies on the Redan . 
XXIX. The Battle of Queenston Heights 
XXX. The Death of Isaac Brock .... 
Supplement — 

After Brock's Death .... 

Subsequent Events of the Campaign of 1812 
The Campaign of 1813 .... 
The Campaign of 1814 .... 
What of Canada? ..... 



128 
135 
140 
144 
147 
152 
156 

161 
165 
167 
171 
173 



Appendix --------- 175 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



PAGE 

Portrait of Major-General Sir Isaac Brock Frontispiece 

" View op St. Peter's Port, Guernsey, 18x6" - - - 11 

Navy Hall, Remnant op the old " Red Barracks," Niagara, 

1797 27 

Portrait of Colonel James FitzGibbon .... 32 

View op Queenston Road, about 1824 40 

Ruins of old Powder Magazine, Fort George 52 

Brock's Cocked Hat 64 

Butler's Barracks (Officers' Quarters), Niagara Common 75 

Our Hero Meets Tecumseh. "This is a Man!" - - 96 

lleut.-colonel john macdonell 109 

View of Queenston Heights and Brock's Monument - - 117 

" Portrait of Major-General Brock, 18 x 6 " - - - - 121 

Powder Magazine, Fort George, Niagara .... 128 

Brock's Midnight Gallop 135 

Battle of Queenston Heights. From an old Print - - 140 

Death of Isaac Brock 156 

Brock's Coat, worn at Queenston Heights - - - 159 

Battle of Queenston. From an old Sketch - - - 161 

Plan of Battle of Queenston 163 

Taking of Niagara, May 27th, 1813. From an old Print - 168 

Cenotaph, Queenston Heights 172 

Brock's Monument 174 

Note. — For full description of above illustrations, see Appendix, 
page 175. 



THE STORY OF ISAAC BROCK 



CHAPTER I. 

OUR HERO'S HOME— GUERNSEY. 

Off the coast of Brittany, where the Bay of Biscay fights 
the white horses of the North Sea, the Island of Guernsey 
rides at anchor. Its black and yellow, red and purple 
coast-line, summer and winter, is awash with surf, burying 
the protecting reefs in a smother of foam. Between these 
drowned ridges of despair, which warn the toilers of the 
sea of an intention to engulf them, tongues of ocean 
pierce the grim chasms of the cliffs. 

Between this and the sister island of Alderney the 
teeth of the Casquets cradle the skeleton of many a 
stout ship, while above the level of the sea the amethyst 
peaks of Sark rise like phantom bergs. In the sunlight 
the rainbow-coloured slopes of Le Gouffre jut upwards a 
jumble of glory. Exposed to the full fury of an Atlantic 
gale, these islands are well-nigh obliterated in drench. 
From where the red gables cluster on the heights of Fort 
George, which overhang the harbour, to the thickets of 
Jerbourg, valley and plain, at the time we write of, were 
a gorgeous carpet of anemones, daffodils, primroses and 
poppies. 

These are tumultuous latitudes. Sudden hurricanes, 

11 • 



The Story of Isaac Brock 

with the concentrated force of the German Ocean behind 
them, soon scourge the sea into a whirlpool and extinguish 
every landmark in a pall of gray. For centuries tumult 
and action have been other names for the Channel Islands. 
It is no wonder that the inhabitants partake of the nature 
of their surroundings. Contact with the elements pro- 
duces a love for combat. As this little book is largely 
a record of strife, and of one of Guernsey's greatest fight- 
ing sons, it may be well to recall the efforts that preceded 
the birth of our hero and influenced his career, and through 
which Guernsey retained its liberties. 

For centuries Guernsey had been whipped into strife. 
From the raid upon her independence by David Bruce, the 
exiled King of Scotland, early in 1300, on through the 
centuries up to the seventeenth, piping times of peace were 
few and far between. The resources of the island led to 
frequent invasions from France, but while fighting and 
resistance did not impair the loyalty of the islanders, it 
nourished a love of freedom, and of hostility to any enemy 
who had the effrontery to assail it. As a rule the sojourn 
of these invaders was brief. When sore pressed in a 
pitched battle on the plateau above St. Peter's Port, the 
inhabitants would retreat behind the buttresses of Castle 
Cornet, when, as in the invasion by Charles V. of France, 
the fortress proving impregnable, the besiegers would 
collect their belongings and sail away. 

In the fourteenth century Henry VI. of England, in 
consideration of a red rose as annual rental, conveyed the 
entire group to the Duke of Warwick. But strange privi- 
leges were from time to time extended to these audacious 
people. Queen Elizabeth proclaimed the islands a world's 

12 



Our Hero's Home 

sanctuary, and threw open the ports as free harbours of 
refuge in time of war. She authorized protection to "a 
distance on the ocean as far as the eye of man could reach." 
This act of grace was cancelled by George the Third, who 
regarded it as a premium on piracy. In Cromwell's time 
Admiral Blake had been instructed to raise the siege of 
Castle Cornet. He brought its commander to his senses, 
but only after nine years of assault, and not before 30,000 
cannon-balls had been hurled into the town. 

Late in the fourteenth century, when the English were 
driven out of France, not a few of those deported, who had 
the fighting propensity well developed, made haste for the 
Channel Islands, where rare chances offered to handle an 
arquebus for the King. Among those who sought refuge 
in Guernsey there landed, not far from the Lion's Rock 
at Cobo, an English knight, Sir Hugh Brock, lately the 
keeper of the Castle of Derval in Brittany, a man " stout 
of figure and valiant of heart." This harbour of refuge 
was St. Peter's Port. 

•' Within a long recess there lies a bay, 
An island shades it from the rolling sea, 
And forms a port." 

The islet that broke the Atlantic rollers was Castle 
Cornet. Sir Hugh Brock, or Badger in the ancient Saxon 
time — an apt name for a tenacious fighter — shook hands 
with fate. He espied the rocky cape of St. Jerbourg, and 
ofttimes from its summit he would shape bold plans for 
the future, the maturing of which meant much to those 
of his race destined to follow. 

The commercial growth of the Channel Islands has been 

13 



The Story of Isaac Brock 

divided into five periods, those of fishing, knitting (the age 
of the garments known as "jerseys" and "guernseys"), 
privateering, smuggling, and agriculture and commerce. 
To the third period belong these records. The pros- 
perity of the islands was greatest from the middle 
of the seventeenth century up to the overthrow of 
Napoleon at Waterloo and the close of Canada's success- 
ful fight against invasion in 1815. During this period 
the building of ships for the North Atlantic and New- 
foundland trade opened new highways for commerce, but 
the greatest factor in this development was the " reputable 
business " of privateering, which must not be confounded 
either with buccaneering or yard-arm piracy. It was only 
permitted under regular letters of marque, was ranked 
as an honorable occupation, and those bold spirits, the 
wild " beggars of the sea " — who preferred the cutlass and 
a roving commission in high latitudes to ploughing up 
the cowslips in the Guernsey valleys, or knitting striped 
shirts at home — were recognized as good fighting men and 
acceptable enemies. 

Trade in the islands, consequent upon the smuggling that 
followed and the building of many ships, produced much 
wealth, creating a class of newly rich and with it some 
" social disruption." 

Notable in the " exclusive set," not only on account of 
his athletic figure and handsome face, but for his winning 
manners and ability to dance, though but a boy, was Isaac 
Brock. Isaac — a distant descendant of bold Sir Hugh 
— was the eighth son of John Brock, formerly a mid- 
shipman in the Royal Navy, a man of much talent and, 
like his son, of great activity. Brock, the father, did 

14 



Our Hero's Home 

not enjoy the fruit of his industry long, for in 1777, in his 
49th year, he died in Brittany, leaving a family of four- 
teen children. Of ten sons, Isaac, destined to become 
" the hero and defender of Upper Canada," was then a 
flaxen-haired boy of eight. 

Anno Domini 1769 will remain a memorable one in the 
history of the empire. Napoleon, the conqueror of Europe, 
and Wellington, the conqueror of Napoleon, were both 
sons of 1769. This same year Elizabeth de Lisle, wife of 
John Brock, of St. Peter's Port, bore him his eighth son, 
the Isaac referred to, also ordained to become " a man of 
destiny." Isaac's future domain was that greater, though 
then but little known, dominion beyond the seas, Canada — 
a territory of imperial extent, whose resources at that 
time came within the range of few men's understanding. 
Isaac Brock, as has been shown, came of good fighting 
stock, was of clean repute and connected with most of the 
families of high degree on the Island. The de Beauvoirs, 
Saumarez, de Lisles, Le Marchants, Careys, Tuppers and 
many others distinguished in arms or diplomacy, were his 
kith and kin. His mind saturated with the stories of the 
deeds of his ancestors, and possessed of a spirit of adven- 
ture developed by constant contact with soldiers and 
sailors, it was but natural that he became cast in a fighting 
mould and that " to be a soldier " was the height of his 
ambition. 

Perhaps Isaac Brock's chief charm, which he retained 
in a marked degree in after life — apart from his wonder- 
ful thews and sinews, his stature and athletic skill — was 
his extreme modesty and gentleness. The fine old maxim 
of the child being " father to the man " in his case held 
good. 

15 



The Story of Isaac Brock 



CHAPTER II. 

SCHOOL AND PASTIMES. 

Guernsey abounded in the natural attractions that are 
dear to the youth of robust body and adventurous nature. 
Isaac, though he excelled in field sports and was the 
admiration of his school-fellows, was sufficiently strong 
within himself to find profit in his own society. In the 
thickets that overlooked Houmet Bay he found solace apart 
from his companions. There he would recall the stories 
told him of the prowess of his ancestor, William de 
Beauvoir, that man of great courage, a Jurat of the royal 
court. Even here he did not always escape intruders. 
Outside the harbour of St. Peter's Port, separated by an 
arm of the sea, rose the Ortach Rock, between the Casquets 
and " Aurigny's Isle," a haunted spot, once the abode of 
a sorcerer named Jochmus. To secure quiet he would 
frequently visit this isolated place, in spite of the resident 
devil, the devil-fish, or the devil-strip of treacherous water 
which ran between. 

He was not ten when, to the amazement of his friends, 
in imitation of Leander but without the same induce- 
ments, he swam the half mile to the reefs of Castle Cornet 
and back again, through a boiling sea and rip-tides that 
ran like mill-races. This performance he repeated again 
and again. For milder amusement he would tramp to 
the water-lane that stole through the Moulin Huet, a 
bower of red roses and perfume, or walk by moonlight to 

16 



School and Pastimes 

the mystic cromlechs, where the early pagans and the 
warlocks and witches of later days flitted round the ruined 
altars. 

Though Isaac was self-contained and resolute he had 
a restless spirit. Fearless, without a touch of the braggart, 
his courage was of the valiant order, the quality that 
accompanies a lofty soul in a strong body. For his con- 
stant courtesy and habit of making sacrifices for his 
friends, he was in danger of being canonized by his school- 
fellows. 

About this time, shortly after his father's death, it was 
suggested he should leave the Queen Elizabeth School on 
the Island and study at Southampton. Here he tried his 
best, boy though he was, to live up to the standard of 
what he had been told were his obligations as a gentleman, 
acquiring, too, a little book-learning and much every-day 
knowledge. 

Isaac's holidays, always spent in his beloved Guernsey, 
increased the thirst for adventure. The spirit of conquest, 
the controlling influence of his after life, grew upon him. 
Something accomplished, something done, was the daily 
rule. To scale an impossible cliff with the wings of 
circling sea-fowl beating in his face, to land a big conger 
eel without receiving a shock, to rescue a partridge from 
a falcon, to shoot a rabbit at fifty paces, to break a wild 
pony, or even to scan a complicated line in his syntax — 
these were achievements, small perhaps, but typical of 
his desire. His young soul was stirred ; the blood coursed 
in his veins as the sap courses in the trees of the forest in 
spring; his mind, susceptible to the influences of nature, 
was strengthened and purified by these pursuits, 
2 17 



The Story of Isaac Brock 

In the shelter of silent trossach, on wind-swept height, 
or on wildest, ever-restless sea, he would, as the mood 
seized him, take his solitary outings. These jaunts, he 
told his mother, gave him time to reflect and resolve. It 
was not strange that he selected a profession that presented 
the opportunities he craved. 



England with folded arms was at peace. The Treaty 
of Versailles had terminated the disastrous war with 
America. The independence of the " Thirteen States " 
had been recognized. The world was drawing a long 
breath, filling its fighting lungs, awaiting the death 
struggle with Napoleon for the supremacy of Europe. 
Yet the spirit of war lingered in the air. It even drifted 
on the breeze across the Channel to Guernsey, and filtered 
through the trees that crowned the Lion's Rock at Cobo. 
It invaded the valleys of the Petit Bot and stirred the 
bulrushes in the marshes of Havelet. The pulse of our 
hero throbbed with the subtle infection. Not with the 
brute lust for other men's blood, but with the instinct of 
the true patriot to shed, if need be, his own blood to main- 
tain the right. He would follow the example of his ances- 
tors and fight and die, if duty called him, in defence of 
king and country. 

The sweet arrogance of youth uplifted him. Earth, air 
and water conspired to encourage him. To satisfy this 
unspoken craving for action he would, from his outlook 
on the Jerbourg crags — where bold Sir Hugh had sat for 
just such purpose years before — watch the Weymouth 
luggers making bad weather of it beyond the Casquets; 

18 



School and Pastimes 

or challenge in his own boat the rip-tides between Sark 
and Brechou, and the combers that romped between St. 
Sampson and the Isle of Herm. 

There was no limit to this boy's hardihood and daring. 
The more furious the gale the more congenial the task. 
Returning from these frequent baptisms of salt water, his 
Saxon fairness and Norman freshness aglow with spray, 
he would loiter on the beach to talk to the kelp gatherers 
raking amid the breakers, and to watch \he mackerel boats, 
reefed down, flying to the harbour for shelter. The cray- 
fish in the pools would tempt him, he would try his hand 
at sand-eeling, or watch the surf men feed a devil-fish to 
the crabs. Then up the gray benches of the furrowed 
cliffs, starred with silver lichens and stone-crop, to where 
ploughmen were leaving glistening furrows in the big 
parsnip fields. Then on through the tangle of sweet-briar, 
honeysuckle and wild roses, where birds nested in the per- 
fumed foliage, until, the summit reached, surrounded by 
purple heather and golden gorse, he would look on the sea 
below, with Sark, like a " basking whale, burning in the 
sunset." Then he would hurry to tell his mother of the 
day's exploits, retiring to dream of strange lands and 
turbulent scenes, in which the roll of drums and roar of 
cannon seemed never absent. 

With his youthful mind possessed with the exploits of 
the King's soldiers in Europe and America, and influenced 
by his brother John's example — then captain in the 8th 
Regiment of the line — Isaac pleaded successfully to enter 
the army. To better prepare for this all-important step, 
and to become proficient in French, a necessary accom- 
plishment, it was arranged, though he was only fifteen, to 

19 



The Story of Isaac Brock 

place him with a Protestant clergyman in Rotterdam for 
one year, to complete his education. 

His vacations now were few; his visits to the Island 
flying ones. But the old life still fascinated him. His 
physique developed as the weeks flew by, and he became 
more and more a striking personality. This was doubly 
true, for while he remained the champion swimmer, he 
was also the best boxer of his class, besides excelling in 
every other manly sport. In tugs-of-war and " uprooting 
the gorse " he had no equals, but a sense of his educational 
deficiencies kept him at his books. 

He had only passed his sixteenth birthday when, one 
wild March morning in 1785, he was handed an important- 
looking document. It was a parchment with the King's 
seal attached, his commission of ensign in the 8th Regi- 
ment. Isaac at once joined the regimental depot in 
England. It was evident that his lack of learning would 
prove a barrier to promotion. He found that much of 
the leisure hitherto devoted to athletic sports must be given 
to study. Behind " sported oak," while dust accumulated 
on boxing-glove and foil — neither the banter of his brother 
officers nor his love for athletics inducing him to break 
the resolution — he bent to his work with a fixity of purpose 
that augured well for his future. 

In every man's life there are milestones. Isaac Brock's 
life may fairly be divided into five periods. When he 
crossed the threshold of his Guernsey home and donned 
the uniform of the King he passed his first milestone. 



20 



From Ensign to Colonel 



CHAPTER III. 

FROM ENSIGN TO COLONEL. 

In every young man's career comes a time of probation. 
During this critical period that youth is wise who enters 
into a truce with his feelings. This is the period when 
influences for good or bad assert themselves — the parting 
of the ways. The sign-posts are painted in capitals. 

When Brock buttoned his scarlet tunic and strapped his 
sword on his hip, as fine a specimen of a clean-bodied, 
clean-minded youth as ever trod the turnpike of life, he 
knew that he was at the cross-roads. The trail before him 
was well blazed, but straight or crooked, rough or smooth, 
valley or height, it mattered little so long as he kept 
nourished the bright light of purpose that burned steadily 
within him. 

Five years of uneventful service, chiefly in England, 
passed by, and our hero was celebrating his coming of age. 
His only inheritance was health, hope and courage. While 
neither monk nor hermit, he had so far been as steadfast 
as the Pole Star in respect to his resolutions. He had 
allowed nothing to induce him to break the rules engraved 
on brass that he had himself imposed. His mind had 
broadened, his spirits ran high, his conscience told him 
that he was graduating in the world's university with 
honour. His love for athletics still continued. He had 
the thews of a gladiator, and in his Guernsey stockings 
stood six feet two inches. Add to this an honest counten- 

21 



The Story of Isaac Brock 

ance, with nmch gentleness of manner and great determina- 
tion, and you have a faithful picture of Isaac Brock. 

Upon obtaining his lieutenancy he returned to Guernsey, 
raised an independent company, and exchanged into the 
49th, the Royal Berkshires, then stationed in Barbadoes. 
He now found himself looking at life under new condi- 
tions. While the beauties of Barbadoes enchanted him, 
his duties as a soldier were disappointing. They were 
limited to drill, dress parade, guard mounting, the erec- 
tion of new fortifications, and patrolling the coast for 
vessels carrying prohibited cargoes. 

Under the terms of a treaty made at Paris in 1773, 
United States produce for British West Indian ports could 
only be carried by British subjects in British ships. 
Britain's men-of-war were also authorized to seize any 
vessel laden with produce for or from any French colony. 
Brock was a soldier, not a policeman, and coast-guard 
duties palled upon him. His great diversion was in cal- 
culating the probabilities of invasion by the French. In 
expectation of this, the refortifying of the island was in 
progress. The memory of Admiral d'Estaing's visit with 
his fleet from Toulon, and the capture of St. Vincent, sent 
a chill through the island. The great victory by the British 
Admiral Rodney, when he whipped a superior French 
fleet to a standstill, was yet to come. Bastions and earth- 
works grew during the night like mushrooms. While 
Brock chafed under restraint, he knew how to improve 
the opportunity. 

Fishing, shooting sea-fowl, and exploring the interior 
on horseback, were Brock's chief pastimes. He became a 
fearless horseman. Mount Hillaby rose 1,200 feet above 

22 



From Ensign to Colonel 

the Caribbean Sea. The very crest of its almost impos- 
sible pinnacle Brock is said to have ascended on horse- 
back. Between Bridgetown, in Barbadoes, and Kingston, 
Jamaica, he divided his time, and though monotonous, his 
life in the Windward Islands was not wholly void of 
adventure. 

Shortly after joining his j.egiment at Bridgetown our 
hero had his first affair of honour, an opportunity to dis- 
play his courage under most trying conditions. A certain 
captain in the 49 th was a confirmed duellist, with a reputa- 
tion of being a dead shot at short range. Resting upon 
his evil record, this braggart had succeeded in terrorizing 
the garrison, and it was soon Brock's turn to be selected 
for insult. But Isaac could not be bullied or intimidated. 
He promptly challenged and was as promptly accepted. 

The fateful morning arrived. In a lonely spot, palm- 
sheltered, and within sight of the sea breaking upon the 
coral reefs, principals and seconds met. There was no 
question in Brock's mind as to his duty — the duello at 
that time was the recognized court of appeal. If its pur- 
pose as originally designed had at times been infamously 
abused, it was still the one and only arbiter through which 
insults had to be purged and from which, for the " officer 
and gentleman," there was no escape. 

Now Isaac, who was several inches taller and much 
bulkier than the scoundrel who had insulted him, declined 
to become a shining mark at the regulation twelve paces. 
He demanded from his fire-eating antagonist that the duel 
proceed on equal terms. Whipping out his kerchief, cool 
as a cucumber, his blue eyes steady and resolute, he insisted 
that they both fire across it. The fairness of the proposal 



The Story of Isaac Brock 

staggered the bully. The chances were not sufficiently 
one-sided. If this plan was acted upon he might himself 
be killed. He refused to comply. The code of honour and 
garrison approval sustained Brock in his contention, and 
the refusal of the professional killer to fight under even 
chances was registered in the mess-room as the act of a 
coward, and he left the regiment by compulsion. 

In Jamaica the continued strain of inactivity under 
which our hero fretted told upon him, and he was struck 
down with fever, his cousin, Henry Brock, lieutenant in 
the 13th Foot, dying in Kingston of the same pestilence. 
At this time Isaac had as servant a soldier named Dobson, 
one of those faithful souls who, true as steel, once installed 
in their master's affection, remain loyal to the end. To 
the untiring attentions of this man Brock owed his life. 
Deep and mutual respect followed, and the two became 
inseparable. Where Brock went, there was Dobson, shar- 
ing his fortune and all the hard knocks of his military 
campaigns, a fellowship ending only with Dobson' s death, 
shortly before his " beloved master " gave up his life on 
Queenston Heights. 

Tropical malaria is hard to shake off. Release from 
duty was imperative, and as England was now calling for 
recruits, the War Office summoned Brock, an alluring 
sample of a soldier, to whom was assigned the task of 
licking the fighting country bumpkin — the raw material 
— into shape. This he did, first in England, then in 
Guernsey and Jersey. A vision of our hero, glorious in 
his uniform, was in itself sufficient to ensnare the senses 
of any country yokel. It was a militant age. 

When quartered in Guernsey, and from the same heights 

24 



From Ensign to Colonel 

of Jerbourg where but a few years before he was wont to 
sweep the ocean for belated fishing smacks, Brock saw his 
kinsman, Sir James Saumarez, and the white canvas of 
a small squadron, heave in sight from Plymouth Roads. 
The British sailor had been ordered to ascertain the strength 
of the French fleet. Saumarez' ships were far slower than 
those of the enemy, so, feigning the greatest desire to fight, 
he lured his opponent by a clever ruse. First he closed 
with him, and then, when his own capture seemed inevit- 
able, hauled his wind, slipped through a maze of reefs 
by an intricate passage — -long familiar to Brock — and 
found safety off La Vazon, where the Frenchmen dare not 
follow. 

In June, 1795, Brock purchased his majority, but 
retained his command of the recruits. From toes to 
finger-tips Isaac was a soldier, bent on mastering every 
detail of the profession of his choice. A year after the 
return of the 49th to England, on the completion of his 
28th year, he became by purchase senior lieutenant- 
colonel of his regiment. High honour and rapid promo- 
tion, considering that for five out of seven years' service 
he had remained an ensign. He had learned to recognize 
opportunity, the earthly captain of a man's fate. 

" For every day I stand outside your door, 
And bid you wake and rise to fight and win." 

But Brock's position was no sinecure. The regiment was 
in a badly demoralized condition. The laxity of the late 
commanding officer had created a deplorable state of things. 
To restore the lost morale of the corps was his first duty. 

25 



The Story of Isaac Brock 

The thoroughness of his reforms can be best understood 
by quoting the words of the Duke of York, who declared 
that " out of one of the worst regiments in the service 
Colonel Brock had made the 49th one of the best." 

From the Commander-in-Chief of a nation's army to 
a colonel — not yet thirty — of a marching regiment, this 
was an exceptional tribute. 

Isaac's persistent endeavours were rapidly bringing 
their own reward. 



26 




Q 
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O 

W 

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Egmont-op-Zee and Copenhagen 

CHAPTEE IV. 

EGMONT-OP-ZEE AND COPENHAGEN. 

Meanwhile the war cloud in Europe was growing apace. 
Holland had been forced into an alliance with France. 
War, no longer a spectre, but a grim monster, stalked the 
Continent. Everywhere the hostile arts of Bonaparte were 
rousing the nations. The breezes that had stirred the 
marshes of Havelet and awakened in Brock a sense of 
impending danger, now a furious gale, swept the empires. 
The roll of drums and roar of cannon that Isaac had lis- 
tened to in his boyhood dreams were now challenging in 
deadly earnest. The great reveille that was awakening 
the world was followed by the British buglers calling to 
arms the soldiers of the King. 

Notwithstanding the aversion of the English prime 
minister, Pitt, to commence hostilities, war was unavoid- 
able. One of the twelve battalions of infantry 
selected for the front was the 49th. When the orders 
were read for the regiment to join the expedition to 
Holland, wild excitement prevailed in barracks. Active 
service had come at last. The parting of Brock with his 
family was softened by maternal pride in his appearance. 

The tunic of the 49th was scarlet, with short swallow- 
tails. The rolling lapels were faced with green, the coat 
being laced with white, with a high collar. The shako, 
which was originally surmounted by white feathers with 
black tips, a distinction for services in the American war 

27 



The Story of Isaac Brock 

of 1776, at Bunker's Hill and Brandywine, was, at Brock's 
special request, replaced by a black plume. The officers 
wore their hair turned up behind and fastened with a 
black " flash." The spectacle of Master Isaac thus arrayed, 
in all the glory of epaulets and sabretache and the gold 
braid of a full colonel, reconciled the inhabitants of St. 
Peter's Port to his departure. 

By the end of August the first division of the British 
army, of which the 49th was a unit, was aboard the trans- 
ports in the Zuyder Zee, off the coast of Holland, and 
early one morning, under the command of Sir Ralph 
Abercrombie, with blare of trumpets and standards flying, 
they effected a landing under the guns of the ships of the 
line, of which, with frigates and sloops, there were well- 
nigh sixty. Brock had often listened to the roar of shot 
and shell in target practice and sham fight, but of a can- 
nonade of artillery, where every shrieking cannon-ball 
was probably a winged messenger of death, this was his 
first experience. He now learned that in the music of the 
empty shell of experiment and the wicked screech of the 
missiles of war there was an unpleasant difference. He 
did not wince, but sternly drew himself together, thought 
of home, begged God's mercy, and awaited the command 
to advance with an impatience that was physical pain. 

By four in the afternoon the Hilder Peninsula and its 
batteries had been taken, but with a loss to the British of 
a thousand men. Brock could scarcely believe that the 
enemy had retreated. This, however, was merely a taste 
of war. The second division having arrived, the whole 
force of nearly 20,000 men, under the Duke of York, 
started to make history. In the last days of a stormy 

28 



Egmont-op-Zee and Copenhagen 

September 16,000 Russian allies reached the scene. The 
fourth brigade, which included the 49th, was under the 
command of General Moore — Sir John Moore, of Corunna 
fame. For several weeks the waiting troops were encamped 
in the sand-hills without canvas and exposed to biting 
storms. The capture of the city of Horn without resist- 
ance hardly prepared our hero and his men for the stout 
opposition at the battle of Egmont-op-Zee that followed. 

Brock's brother, Savery, a paymaster to the brigade, 
though by virtue of his calling exempt from field service, 
insisted on joining the fighting line, acting as aide to Sir 
Ralph Abercrombie. 

Every record, every line written or in print concerning 
Brock, from first to last, all prove that the keynote of his 
success, the ruling impulse of his life, was promptness 
and action. So, at Egmont, no sooner did the bugle sound 
the advance than he was off with his men like a sprinter 
at the crack of the pistol. Others might follow ; he would 
lead. They were part of the advance guard of a column 
of 10,000 men. The enemy was in front in superior num- 
bers, but his weakness lay in underrating the courage of 
the British. The Russians had been taught to consider 
English soldiers the most undisciplined rabble in the world ! 

This was a factor unknown and unheeded by Brock. 
All that he knew was that an obstacle barred the way. 

" Steady, the 49th I" 

The loud, clear notes of the leader rang above rasp- 
ing of scabbards and suggestive clank of steel. The men 
straightened. A suppressed exclamation ran along the line 

29 



The Story of Isaac Brock 

and died to a whisper. Whispers faded into silence. A 
fraction of a second, perhaps, and then, high above the still- 
ness, when British and French alike were silently appealing 
to the God of battles, over steaming dyke and yellow sand- 
dunes rose once more in trumpet tones the well-known 
voice, " Charge, men, and use your bayonets with resolu- 
tion !" No rules were followed as to the order of going — 
the ground, to use Brock's words, was too rough, "like a 
sea in a heavy storm " — but the dogs of war were let loose. 
The quarry was at bay. Another instant and the air was 
split with yells, the clash of naked steel and screams of 
agony. Then cheer upon cheer, as the British swept irresis- 
tibly on, and the enemy, declining to face the glittering 
bayonets and unable to resist the impact of the English, 
wavered, broke and retreated. 

The shedding of men's blood by man is never an edify- 
ing spectacle. The motive that prompts the attack or 
repels it, the blind obedience that entails the sacrifice, the 
retribution that follows, are more or less understandable. 
What of the compensation? There may be times when 
a pure principle is at stake and must be upheld despite 
all hazards, but there are times when there is no principle 
at stake whatever. These considerations, however, have 
no place in the soldier's manual. They are questions for 
the court, not the camp, and cannot be argued on the battle- 
field. The soldier is not invited to reason why, though 
many an unanswerable question by a dying hero has been 
whispered in the trenches. 

There was much carnage at Egmont-op-Zee, and many 
a 49th grenadier " lost the number of his mess." Isaac 
directly after the fight wrote to his brothers that " Noth- 

30 



Egmont-op-Zee and Copenhagen 

ing could exceed the gallantry of his men in the charge." 
To his own wound he referred in his usual breezy and 
impersonal way. " I got knocked down," he said, " soon 
after the enemy began to retreat, but never quitted the 
field, and returned to my duty in less than half an hour." 

We must appeal to his brother Savery for the actual 
facts, " Isaac was wounded," said Savery, in reply to 
a request for particulars, " and his life was in all proba- 
bility preserved by the stout cotton handkerchief which, 
as the air was very cold, he wore over a thick black silk 
cravat, both of which were perforated by a bullet, and 
which prevented it entering his neck. The violence of 
the blow, however, was so great as to stun and dismount 
him, and his holsters were also shot through." 

That the action had been a hot one can be best judged 
by the official returns. Out of 391 rank and file of the 
49th in the field, there were 110 casualties — 30 killed, 
50 wounded and 30 missing. Savery Brock shared the 
honours with his brother. Oblivious to a hurricane of 
bullets, he rode from sand-hill to sand-hill, encouraging 
the men until his truancy was noticed and he was halted 
by Isaac. " By the Lord Harry, Master Savery," shouted 
the colonel, loud as he could pitch his powerful voice, as 
the big paymaster strode by, his horse having been shot 
under him, " did I not order you, unless you remained 
with the General, to stay with your iron chest ? Go back, 
sir, immediately." To which Savery answered, playfully, 
" Mind your regiment, Master Isaac. You surely would 
not have me quit the field now." Of this intrepid brother 
Isaac wrote, " Nothing could surpass Savery's activity and 
gallantry." Another of the wounded at Egmont was Lord 

31 



The Story of Isaac Brock 

Aylmer, afterwards Governor-General of British North 
America. The loss of the enemy was estimated at 4,000. 
Two weeks later the British troops — while suffering 
intensely from severe weather — met with a reverse in 
the field, to which, through a misunderstanding of orders, 
their Russian allies contributed. The Duke of York was 
ordered to evacuate the country. The campaign had 
resulted in much experience and high honour for Brock. 
Quick to perceive and learn, his powers of observation 
on the field had enriched his mind with lessons in the 
tactics of war never to be forgotten. 

In the ranks of the 49th was a young Irishman of 
superior talents. Brock was not slow to discover his 
abilities, and " with a discrimination that honoured both," 
he later appointed this combative private sergeant-major. 
Still later he procured him an ensigncy in the 49th, finally 
appointing him adjutant, promotion that the ability and 
gallantry of James FitzGibbon, a Canadian veteran of 
1812, and the " hero of Beaver Dams " (Adjutant-General 
of Canada, 1837, and Military Knight of Windsor, 1851), 
amply justified. 

If Brock was quick to appreciate merit, he was no less 
so in detecting defects. The Russian soldiers came in 
for scathing criticism. The type at Egmont impressed 
him most unfavourably. The clumsy Russian foot-soldier 
was his special aversion. The accuracy of his criticism 
has been confirmed by military writers, but this book is 
not for the purpose of weighing the quality of Russian 
valour in Holland. Six thousand of these Russian allies, 
the lateness of the season preventing their return home, 
were later quartered for six months in Guernsey. 

32 




COLONEL JAMES FITZGIBBON. 

(From photograph by Gerald FitzGibbon, 
in 1853.) 



Egmont-op-Zee and Copenhagen 

While our hero was a severe military critic, he was 
never an unjust one, neither did he spare his own men. 
Though not a martinet, which was foreign to every fibre 
of his nature, he was a stickler for rigid discipline. When 
the expedition was recalled, he was first quartered in 
Norwich, and then at the old familiar barracks of St. 
Helier, in Jersey. On his return to the latter place, in 
1800, after leave of absence, he found that the junior 
lieutenant-colonel of the 49th — Colonel Sheaffe — had 
incurred the reasonable dislike of the men. The regiment 
was drawn up on the sands for morning parade, standing 
at ease. In company with this unpopular officer Brock 
appeared upon the scene. He was greeted with three 
hearty cheers. The personal honour, however, was lost 
sight of in the act of disobedience. Kebuking the men 
severely for " their most unmilitary conduct," they were 
marched to quarters and confined to barracks for a week. 
He would not, he explained, allow public exaltation of 
himself at the expense of another. 

The next year found our hero in the Baltic Sea, aboard 
the Ganges, detailed for active duty as second in com- 
mand of the land forces that under Lord Nelson were 
ordered to the attack on Copenhagen. It was intended 
that Brock, with the 49th, should lead in storming the 
Trekroner (Three Crown) battery, in conjunction with 
five hundred seamen ; but the heroic defence by the Danes 
rendered the attempt impracticable, and Brock remained 
on the Ganges, an unwilling spectator of bloodshed in 
which he took no part. Towards the close of the engage- 
ment — the heaviest pounding match in history — he was 
on the Elephant, Nelson's flagship, and saw the hero of 
3 33 



The Story of Isaac Brock 

Trafalgar write his celebrated letter to the Crown Prince 
of Denmark. 

As at Egmont, the irrepressible conduct of Savery Brock 
on the Ganges gave Isaac much concern. Savery, as 
a former midshipman, was of course a gunner. While 
training a quarter-deck gun on the Trekroner battery his 
hat was blown from his head and he was knocked down 
by the rush of wind from a grapeshot. Seeing this, Brock 
exclaimed, " Ah, poor Savery ! He is indeed dead." But, 
to use his own words, it was only " the hot air from the 
projectile that had ' floored ' him." Previous to this he 
had driven Isaac almost demented by stating his intention 
of joining the storming party and sharing his brother's 
danger. " Is it not enough that one brother should be 
killed or drowned?" said Isaac. But Savery persisted 
until, at Isaac's request, the commander of the Ganges 
kept the paymaster quiet by stratagem. " Master Savery," 
said he, "you simply must remain with us. I appoint 
you captain of the gun. It will amuse you." 

The loss of the Danes at Copenhagen was placed at 
6,000, including prisoners. The British killed and 
wounded numbered 943, more than fell at the Battle of 
the Nile. Part of this loss is charged to a criminal mis- 
conception of military etiquette. To a line officer who asked 
where his men should be stationed, the captain of the battle- 
ship replied, that as soldiers were no good with big guns, 
and as the forts were out of musket range, he should " send 
them between decks." This, said the infantryman, " would 
be eternal disgrace." In deference to this brutal concep- 
tion of military ethics, the men were drpjvn up on the 
gangway and, standing at attention, were allowed to be 

34 



Egmont-op-Zee and Copenhagen 



mowed down by Danish grapeshot. The 49th, on its 
return to England from Copenhagen, thoroughly initiated 
in the cruel cult of war, was ordered to Colchester. 

Isaac Brock, with the bay-leaves of distinction on his 
brow, and his heart touched but not dismayed at the 
ferocity of war, had passed the second milestone of his 
life. 



35 



The Story of Isaac Brock 



CHAPTER V. 

BROCK IN CANADA. 

Isaac Bkock received with regret his orders to proceed 
with the 49th to Canada. Europe was still in the clutches 
of war. Great opportunities awaited the soldier of 
fortune in the struggle waging in the Peninsula. The 
prospect for military advancement in Canada was not 
encouraging. America was at peace. Canada was but 
slowly developing. While her exports of lumber and fish 
attracted the attention of the British merchant, her great 
resources were unknown except to the fur trader and 
the few United States speculators whose cupidity kept 
pace with their knowledge. Though the known sympathy 
of the United States for France was regarded as a pos- 
sible excuse for hostility towards England, as yet this 
sympathy had found no official utterance, hence the out- 
look from a soldier's standpoint was far from desirable. 
Brock's life in the West Indies had created a distaste for 
garrison duty. While a past master in the details of 
barrack life, his career under arms had created an aversion 
for the grind of drill and parade. 

Life in the high latitudes of Canada would present a 
clean-cut contrast to tropical Barbadoes, but it was out of 
harmony with his ambition, and, judging by his spirits, 
he might have been embarking for penal servitude at 
Botany Bay rather than for the land which was to bring 
him lasting fame. Even the attentions of the devoted 

36 



Brock in Canada 

Dobson, who had just filled his pipe, did not serve to 
arouse him. Brock's, depression was short-lived. His 
optimism and faith banished gloomy thoughts. The ship 
had hardly dropped the last headland of the Irish coast 
when the winds bred in Labrador awoke the Viking strain 
in him and filled his soul with hope. The swinging seas 
of this northern ocean revived thoughts of the long-ago 
exploits of Sebastian Cabot, the discoverer of Newfound- 
land, and of his own sea-dog ancestors, those rough-riders 
of the sea who had defied the banks of Sable Island and 
returned to St. Peter's Port with their rich cargoes of 
contraband, looking innocent as kittens, while the ship 
was bursting with fur, fin and feather. So, pipe in 
mouth, with the frigate close-hauled, watching her bows 
splintering the sea into a million jewels, he left care 
behind, and thenceforward his busy brain was forming 
plans that would soften his exile in that land of chilling- 
promise he was approaching. 

He had been told to expect magnificent scenery, but 
was quite unprepared for the picture that the Gulf of 
St. Lawrence unfolded. The Straits of Belle Isle, the 
Magdalen Islands, the brazen bosom of the Bay of Chaleur 
that had allured Jacques C artier 265 years before, the 
might of the noble river and the glorious vista of the 
citadel and frowning heights of Quebec, where Wolfe and 
Montcalm fell — the ancient Stadacona framed in the sun- 
set — amazed him. A presage of coming conflict crowded 
his brain. 

" Manfully tell mo the truth." 

37 



The Story of Isaac Brock 

Carr, an educated soldier of the 49th, was hesitating. 
Desertions had been frequent at Quebec, and discipline 
must be restored. Stepping up, with hand clenched, the 
officer continued, " Don't lie ! Tell the truth like a man. 
You know I have ever treated you kindly." The confes- 
sion of intended desertion followed. " Go, then," said 
Colonel Brock, — "go and tell your deluded comrades 
everything that has passed here, and also that I will 
still treat every man of you with kindness, and then you 
may desert me if you please." 

During the three years of his command at Montreal, 
York, Fort George and Quebec, though mutiny was 
epidemic in both Europe and America, Brock had lost 
but one man by desertion. He had won the loyalty of 
the rank and file. FitzGibbon said of him that " he 
created by his judicious praise the never-failing interest 
of the men in the ranks." His accurate knowledge of 
human nature served him in the graver experiences of 
life which followed. His stay in Quebec was short. A 
study of the ancient citadel and its incomplete fortifica- 
tions occupied his time. In the summer of 1803 he was 
stationed at York, a hamlet carved out of the backwoods, 
sustaining a handful of people, but famous as the gather- 
ing-place of many wise men. He found that desertions 
in Upper Canada had become too frequent. The tempta- 
tions offered by a long line of frontier easy of access, and 
the desperate discipline in the army, had led to much 
brutality in the way of punishments. 

Such were the conditions in Upper Canada when Brock 
reached York. Shortly after his arrival six men, influ- 
enced by an artificer, stole a military batteau and 

38 



Brock in Canada 

started across the lake to Niagara. By midnight Brock, 
with his trusty sergeant-major and the ever-watchful 
Dobson, in another batteau with twelve men, passed out of 
the western gap in hot pursuit of the defaulters. Though 
the night was calm the trip was perilous. Before them 
stretched a waste of water, but our hero was in his element. 
He was living over again his daring visits to the Casquets 
through the furious seas that raced between St. Sampson 
and the Isle of Herm. 

The crew was divided into " watches," six taking an 
hour's "breather" while the other six rowed, hour and 
hour about, alternately rowing and resting. When the 
wind served they hoisted their big square sail, Brock at 
the tiller. On this occasion there was little wind, and 
" Master Isaac," for example's sake, and " to keep my 
biceps and fore-arm in good condition" — as he told the 
sergeant-major — took his regular spells at the oar. On 
arriving at Fort George, Colonel Hunter, Governor and 
Commandant, rebuked him for rashly venturing across 
the lake in an open boat, " a risk," he said, " never before 
undertaken."* The expedition, however, was successful, 
for the deserters were surprised on the American shore 
and made prisoners. 

* Lake Ontario was crossed from Toronto to the wharf at the 
mouth of the Niagara River in an ordinary double-scull, lap- 
strake pleasure-skiff, by the writer and another Argonaut — 
Herbert Bartlett — one unruly morning in the summer of 1872. 
Though a risky row, and not previously attempted, it was not 
regarded as a remarkable feat by the performers. 



39 



The Story of Isaac Brock 

CHAPTER VI. 

BRIDLE-ROAD, BATTEAU AND CANOE. 

The means for transit through Canada at this time was 
most primitive, and not the least of the questions which 
occupied Brock's thoughts was the important one of trans- 
portation. The lack of facilities for moving large bodies 
of men and supplies, in event of war, was as apparent 
as was the lack of vessels of force on lake and river. 

Between Quebec and Montreal, a distance of sixty 
leagues, the overland journey was divided into twenty- 
four stages, requiring four relays of horse-caleches in 
summer and horse-carioles in winter. The time occupied 
was three days, and the rate for travellers twenty-five 
cents a league. This rough road — which entailed numerous 
ferries in summer at the Ottawa and at Lake St. Francis, 
except for a break of fifty miles — led by Cornwall and 
Prescott to Kingston, along which route United Empire 
Loyalists twenty years before had established themselves. 

A few years prior to Brock's arrival, Governor Simcoe, 
with the men of the Queen's Rangers, had cut a roadway 
through the dense forest between Prescott and Burling- 
ton, at the head of Lake Ontario. From Ancaster, the 
then western limit of the U. E. Loyalists' settlement, this 
road traversed the picturesque region that surrounded 
the Mohawk village on the Grand River, where Joseph 
Brant, the famous warrior, was encamped with his Six 
Nation Indians. From this point it penetrated the roll- 

40 



Bridle-Road, Batteau and Canoe 

ing lands of the western peninsula, to the La Trenche (the 
Thames River), from whence Lake St. Clair and the 
Detroit outlet to the great lakes was reached by water. 
Another military road, also built by Simcoe, followed the 
old Indian trail through thirty-three miles of forest from 
York to Lake Simcoe. This shorter route to Lake Superior 
enabled the North-West Fur Company — established by 
Frobisher and McTavish, of Montreal, in 1776 — to avoid 
canoeing up the Ottawa and its tortuous tributaries. The 
batteaux were brought up the St. Lawrence, breaking bulk 
at certain " carrying places," then under sail up Lake 
Ontario to York. From here the cargoes were hauled by 
horses over Yonge's military road to Lake Simcoe, thence 
by river and stormy Lake Huron to Fort Michilimackinac, 
Great Turtle Island — the Mackinaw of to-day — at the 
head of Lake Michigan. By this route fifty dollars was 
saved on every ton of freight from Ottawa to the middle 
north. At Mackinaw the goods were reshipped by bark 
canoe to the still remoter regions in the further West, 
where Spanish pedlars on the southern tributaries of the 
lower Mississippi traded with the Akamsea Indians in 
British goods distributed from Mackinaw. 

The records of these trips through a wilderness of 
forest and stream, with their exhilarating hardships, had 
a singular fascination for Isaac Brock. It was not long 
before he had won, with his conquering ways and robust 
manhood, the allegiance of the big-hearted fur-traders in 
Montreal. Their wild legends of the great fur country 
rang in his ears, and his receptive mind was soon stored 
with the exploits of Eadisson and Groseillers, Joliette, 
Marquette, and other famous pathfinders, with whose 

41 



The Story of Isaac Brock 

exploits a century and a half before, aided by his fluency 
in French, he became wonderfully familiar. 

He found the evolution of the Canadian highway a 
subject of absorbing interest. From his Caughnawaga 
guides he learned how the tracks made by lynx and beaver, 
rabbit and wolverine, wolf and red deer — invariably the 
safest and firmest ways — were in turn naturally followed 
by Indian voyageur and fur-trader, until the blazed trail 
became the bridle-road for the pack-horse of the pioneer. 
This, as the white settler drifted in, became the winter- 
road ; then, as civilization stifled the call of the wild, 
there uprose from swamp and muskeg the crude corduroy, 
expanding by degrees into the half-graded highway, until 
the turnpike and toll-bar, with its despotic keeper, exacted 
its tribute from progress. This was the prelude to a still 
more amazing transformation, for the day soon came, 
though not in Brock's time, when the drumming of 
the partridge was silenced by the choo-choo of the loco- 
motive as it shrieked through forest and beaver-meadow 
on its way to vaster tracts, further and further west, dis- 
closing and leaving in its trail an empire of undreamed- 
of fertility. Then the redman, disturbed in his solitudes, 
was confronted with civilization, and had to accept the 
terms of conquest or seek another sanctuary in the greater 
wilderness beyond. 

The navigation of the lakes and rivers at this time was 
limited to three types of vessel, the " snow," a three-master 
with a try-sail abaft the mainmast, the schooner, the bat- 
teau and the birch canoe, and, in closely land-locked waters, 
the horse ferry. The Durham boat, a batteau on a larger 
scale with false keel, had yet to be introduced. The bark 

42 



Bridle-Road, Batteau and Canoe 

canoe, which for certain purposes has never been improved 
upon — not even excepting the cedar-built canoe — varied in 
size from nine to thirty feet, or, in the language of the 
voyageur, from one and a half to five fathoms. These canoes 
had capacity for a crew of from one to thirty men, or a 
cargo of seventy " pieces " of ninety pounds each, equal to 
three tons, exclusive of provisions for nine paddlers. In 
these arks of safety, manned by Indians or metis (half- 
breeds), the fur-trader would leave Lachine, on the St. 
Lawrence, ascend the Ottawa, descend the French, cross 
Lake Huron — the Lake Orleans of Nicollet and Hennepin 
— and find no rest from drench or riffle until he reached 
Mackinaw, or more distant Tort Dearborn (now Chicago), 
on the Skunk River, at the head of Lake Michigan, 1,450 
miles by water from Quebec. 

The batteaux — great, open, flat-bottomed boats, forty feet 
long and eight feet beam, pointed at stem and stern — were 
not unlike the York boats used in Lord Wolseley's Red 
River expedition in 1870, and would carry five tons of 
cargo. Rigged with a movable mast stepped almost amid- 
ships, and a big lug-sail, these greyhounds of the lakes 
were, for passengers in our hero's time, often the only 
means of water transport between Quebec and Little York. 
As important factors in the transport of soldiers and 
munitions in the war of 1812, they deserve description. 

While sailing well when before the wind, they yet, with 
their defective rig and keelless bottoms, carrying no 
weather helm, made little headway with the wind close 
abeam. On one occasion Isaac Brock left Lachine with a 
brigade of five batteaux, so that all hands could unite in 
making the portages. At the Cascades, the Milles Roches 

43 



The Story of Isaac Brock 

and the Cedars, three-quarters of the cargo had to be port- 
aged by the packmen. At times these lightened boats were 
poled or tracked through the broken water, towed by the 
men, from such foothold as the rocky banks afforded, by 
means of a long lariat tied to the boat's bow, with loops over 
each trackman's shoulder, one man steering with a long 
sweep. When this treadmill work was impossible, owing 
to too steep banks, and where no batteau locks existed, 
the crew hauled the boats across the portage on a skidway 
of small rolling logs, and, so journeying, Prescott was 
reached. Here, the wind being favourable, lug-sails were 
hoisted and Brock's strange fleet started for Kingston, 
reaching it after twelve days' toil from Lachine, then 
coasting further along Lake Ontario to Little York 
(Toronto). When wind failed, the long oars were used, 
the men rising from the thwarts to pull, standing. Thus, 
alternately sitting and rising, pulling in unison, the light- 
hearted voyageurs would break into one of their wild 
French chants, quaint with catching refrain, in which the 
young soldier soon learned to join. 

At Prescott Brock sometimes took the Government 
schooner, paying two guineas for a trip, which might last 
a week, or caught one of the small " two-stickers " that 
carried freight between Kingston and Queenston. If 
much pressed for time, the batteau would be exchanged for 
a caleche — the stage-coach was as yet only a dream — and 
he would resign himself to a rude jolting over the coloni- 
zation road through the forest that flanked the rugged 
northern shore of Lake Ontario. 

These trips were a never-failing source of surprise and 
profit. The skill of the canoemen, the strength and endur- 

44 



Bridle-Road, Batteau and Canoe 

ance of the packmen, excited his admiration. What won- 
derful raw material ! Given drill and discipline, what 
might not be achieved on the frontier with such craftsmen ! 
The muscles, all whipcord, of these rugged Canadians, part 
coureur de hols, part scout, amazed him. One thing was 
not so evident as he could have wished. Their love seemed 
to be more for race and language, home and wilderness, 
than for King and country. Perhaps, as he said, if the 
safety of their homes were threatened, they would develop 
patriotism of the highest type. 

But, after all, lo to kings, "Who," they naively asked 
him, "was their king? Surely they must be under two 
flags and two kings. Napoleon or George? Que voulez 
vousf 

As their hearts seemed to be as stout as their limbs, they 
would, he reflected, be unconquerable, these careless chil- 
dren of waste places. While Brock thus communed, he 
watched. There was little to choose between them — 
Warcisse, Baptiste, Louis, Jacques, Pierre — all strong as 
buffalo, all agile as catamounts. 

They would lift the " pieces " from the dripping canoe 
and land them on the slippery rock. A minute later and 
ISTarcisse perhaps would appear, a bit bent, to keep balanced 
a bag of flour, a chest of tea, a caddy of tobacco and sun- 
dry packages of sugar or shot that made up the load rest- 
ing on his shoulders where body and nape of neck joined. 
This load was supported and held together by a broad 
moose-hide band — a tump-line — strapped across his fore- 
head, his upraised hands grasping the narrowing moose- 
hide stretched on either side of his lowered head, between 
ear and shoulder. Brock would watch these packmen as, 

45 



The Story of Isaac Brock 

thus handicapped with a load weighing from two to five 
hundred pounds, they set out across the rough portage, 
singing, and at a dog trot, following each other in quick 
succession. There was rivalry, of course, duly encouraged 
by Brock with a promise of tobacco to the first man in, 
but it was all good-natured competition, the last man 
chanting his laughing canzonet as loudly as the first. 

Our hero, with his grand physique and cleverness, was 
not long in mastering the tricks of the carriers. He soon 
learned to build up a load and adjust a tump-line, after 
which practice made the carrying of a pack almost twice 
his own weight a not extraordinary performance. 

These trips afforded Brock an opportunity to study 
Indian character. He learned much from the packman 
and voyageur that was destined to be of great value to him 
in his career on the western frontier, among the outposts 
of civilization. 

Little escaped his notice. His faculties were sharpened 
by contact with these children of the wilds, whose only 
class-room was the forest, their only teacher, nature. As 
the crushed blade or broken twig were of deepest import 
to the Indian scout, so no incident of his life was now too 
trivial for Brock to dismiss as of no importance. 



46 



Mutiny and Desertion 



CHAPTER VII. 

MUTINY AND DESERTION. 

Bkock could hardly reconcile the degree of punishment 
inflicted upon the soldiers, the poorly paid defenders 
of the Empire, with their casual offences. While he 
rebelled against the brutalities of some officers, he was 
powerless to prevent them. The sentencing powers con- 
ferred by court-martial were at that time beyond belief. 
A captain and two subalterns could order 999 lashes with a 
" cat " steeped in brine. It is on record that on one occasion 
a soldier was sentenced to 1,500 lashes for " marauding." 
And there were other modes of torture. This was close 
upon the heels of a period when even the slightest breaches 
of the Civil law were punished out of all proportion to the 
offence. While insisting on the strictest discipline, Brock 
always tempered justice with mercy. Few men better 
realized the value of a pleasant word or had in such degree 
the rare tact that permitted familiarity without killing 
respect. 

A terrible incident occurred in the summer of 1803 
which tested all Brock's fortitude and conception of duty. 
A conspiracy to mutiny was discovered at Fort George 
on the Niagara River. The methods of the commanding 
officer had exasperated the men until they planned mutiny 
on a large scale. This included the murder of Colonel 
Sheaffe and the incarceration of the other officers. A 
threatening remark by a soldier of the 49th was overheard. 
He was arrested and put in irons. A confession by another 

47 



The Story of Isaac Brock 

soldier implicated a well-known sergeant, and a message 
was sent to York begging Brock's immediate presence. 

Brock landed from the schooner alone. It was din- 
ner hour. The barrack-square, as he crossed it to the 
guard-house, was deserted. In charge of the guard he 
found two of the suspected ringleaders. The guard pre- 
sented arms. " Sergeant," said the colonel of towering 
frame and commanding aspect, " come here. Lay down 
your pike." The order was promptly complied with. 
" Take off your sword and sash and lay them down also." 
This was done. " Corporal O'Brien," said the colonel, 
addressing the sergeant's brother-conspirator, "bring a 
pair of handcuffs, put them on this sergeant, lock him 
up in a cell, and bring me the key." This, too, was clone. 
" JSTow, corporal, you come here ; lay down your arms, take 
off your accoutrements, and lay them down also." He 
was obeyed. Turning to the right man of the guard, 
" Come here, you grenadier. Bring a pair of handcuffs 
and put them on this corporal, lock him up in another 
cell, and bring me the key." When this was done, turn- 
ing to the astounded drummer, Brock said, " Drummer, 
beat to arms." 

The garrison was aroused. First to rush out was 
Lieutenant Williams, sword in hand. " Williams !" said 
the Colonel, " go instantly and secure Rock " — a former 
sergeant, recently reduced. " If he hesitates to obey, even 
for one second, cut him down." Up the stairs flew Wil- 
liams, calling to Rock to come down. " Yes, sir," answered 
Rock, " when I take my arms." " You must come with- 
out them," said Williams. " Oh, I must have my arms, 
sir," and as Rock stretched out his hand to seize his 
musket in the arm-rack, Williams shouted, " If you lay 

48 



Mutiny and Desertion 

one finger on your musket I will cut you down," at the 
same time drawing his sabre. " Now, go down before me." 
Rock obeyed, was placed in irons, and within half an 
hour Clark, O'Brien, and nine other mutineers were 
embarked for York on the schooner. 

What a picture rises before us. The mid-day sun, the 
glittering barrack-square, the scarlet and white tunics and 
polished side-arms of the frightened soldiers, with Brock, 
the embodiment of power and stern justice, towering above 
the shrinking culprits. Expiation of the offence had yet 
to follow. The appetite of the law had to be appeased. 
The trial took place at Quebec. Four mutineers and three 
deserters were condemned to death, and in the presence 
of the entire garrison were executed. The details of this 
are best unwritten. Through a shocking blunder, the firing 
party discharged their carbines when fifty yards distant, 
instead of advancing to within eight yards of the victims. 
The harrowing scene rent Brock's heart. That the men who 
had fought so bravely under him at Egmont and laughed 
at the carnage at Copenhagen should end their lives in 
this manner was inexpressibly sad. After reading the 
account of the execution of their comrades to the men on 
parade at Fort George, Brock added, " Since I have had 
the honour to wear the British uniform I have never felt 
grief like this." The prisoners publicly declared that had 
they continued under our hero's command they would have 
escaped their doom, " being the victims of unruly passions 
inflamed by vexatious authority." 

When Brock assumed command every possible privilege 
was extended to the troops at Fort George. For every 
request, however trivial, he knew there was some reason. 
His mind was big enough to trade in trifles, 
4 49 



The Story of Isaac Brock 

In view of these desertions, the prospect of hostilities 
between Canada and the United States became a momen- 
tous one. By close study of events in France and America 
and intercourse with prominent United States citizens, 
Brock detected the signs that precede trouble. 

But the grave question of desertion and the war-cloud 
on the horizon could not occupy Brock's attention to 
the exclusion of other demands upon his time. Canada's 
growing importance was attracting many travellers from 
over-seas. Notable among these was Thomas Moore, the 
brilliant Irish poet, who was our hero's guest at Fort 
George for two weeks in the summer of 1803. Every 
attraction that the peninsula presented was taxed for his 
entertainment. Of these diversions the one which prob- 
ably left the most lasting impression on the versatile son 
of Erin was a gathering of the Tuscarora warriors, under 
Chief Brant, at the Indian encampment on the Grand 
River. 

" Here," wrote Moore, in one of his celebrated epistles, 
" the Mohawks received us in all their ancient costumes. 
The young men ran races for our amusement, and gave an 
exhibition game of ball, while the old men and the women 
sat in groups under the surrounding forest trees. The 
scene altogether was as beautiful as it was new to me. To 
Colonel Brock, in command of the fort, I am particularly 
indebted for his many kindnesses during the fortnight I 
remained with him." 

It was while Moore was paddling down the St. Lawrence 
with his Caughnawaga voyageurs, after leaving Niagara — 
where he saw the fountains of the great deep broken up — 
that he composed his celebrated boat-song : 

50 



Mutiny and Desertion 

" Faintly as tolls the evening chime, 
Our voices keep tune and our oars keep time. 
Soon as the woods on shore look dim, 
We'll sing at St. Ann's our parting hymn. 
Row, brothers, row ! the stream runs fast, 
The rapids are near, and the daylight's past !" 

In the fall of 1805 our hero was gazetted full colonel, 
and returned to England on leave. While he had lost 
none of the buoyancy of his youth, he was daily realizing 
the fullness of his responsibilities. 

For the better defence of Canada, he submitted to the 
Duke of York, the Commander-in-Chief, a suggestion 
for the forming of a veteran battalion. He quoted the 
case of the U. E. Loyalists, who after the Revolutionary 
war, had been granted small tracts in Upper Canada ; con- 
trasting their perfect conduct with the practices of some 
of the settlers ten years later, whose loyalty, from his own 
observation, would not stand the test. Brock, who was 
warmly thanked by the Duke for his zeal, was now 
regarded as a person to be reckoned with. His abilities 
and charm of manner had won him a reputation at the 
Horse Guards. 

He returned to Guernsey to receive the congratulations 

of those brothers " who loved him so dearly," but had not 

time to tell the graphic story of his sojourn in Canada or 

revisit the haunts of his boyhood, for news arrived from 

the United States of so warlike a character that he 

returned before his leave expired. He overtook at Cork 

the Lady Saumarez, a well-manned Guernsey privateer, 

armed with letters of marque, and bound for Quebec. 

Leaving London on the 26th of June, 1806, he set sail 

for Canada, never to return to those to whom he had so 

endeared himself by his splendid qualities. 

61 



The Story of Isaac Brock 

CHAPTER VIII. 

FRANCE, THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA. 

Shortly after his return to Quebec, Isaac Brock suc- 
ceeded to the command of the troops in both Upper and 
Lower Canada, with the pay and allowance of a brigadier. 

Though no overt act had been committed against Canada 
by the United States, relations were strained, and he found 
much to occupy his time. His humanity stirred, he set 
about erecting hospitals, reorganized the commissariat 
department, and engaged in an unpleasant dispute with 
President Dunn, the civil administrator of Lower Canada, 
regarding the fortifications of the Citadel. To-day deep 
in plans for mobilizing the militia and the formation of 
a Scotch volunteer corps of Glengarry settlers; to-morrow 
devising the best way of utilizing an Indian force in the 
event of war. In June, 1807, the affair between the British 
gunboat Leopard and the United States frigate Chesapeake 
occurred. The former boarded the latter in search of 
deserters, and on being challenged, gave the Chesapeake 
a broadside. While the Leopard was clearly in the 
wrong, the United States Government rejected every offer 
of reparation made by Britain. Then came retaliation. 
French vessels — though France was at war with Britain 
— were actually allowed by the United States, a neutral 
power, full freedom of its harbours. The ships of Britain, 
a power at peace with the United States of America, were 
refused the same privilege. 

For a proper understanding of the position we must 

52 




RUINS OF POWDER MAGAZINE, FORT GEORGE. 
(From photograph in possession of Miss Carnochan.) 



France, the United States and Canada 

unroll a page of history. Napoleon, though he crushed 
the Prussians at Jena, could not efface the memory of 
his own humiliation at Trafalgar. His ears tingled. He 
was waiting to deliver a blow that would equalize the 
destruction of his fleet by Nelson. Though Britain 
remained mistress of the seas, surely, thought the " little 
corporal," a way could be found to humble her. If her 
sources of food supply, for instance, could be cut off, 
" the wings of her war-ships would be clipped." 

To this end Napoleon issued an arrogant proclamation, 
which was of far-reaching effect. It authorized the destruc- 
tion of all British goods and all colonial produce shipped 
to any European port by a British vessel. It allowed the 
seizure by France of all ships, of whatever nation, which 
had even called at a British port. To this the United 
Slates raised no objection, though it was in violation of 
the world's law in respect to nations which were at peace 
with each other. The United States' President evidently 
believed that British resentment at Napoleon's decree 
would sooner or later provide the United States with an 
excuse for a disagreement with Britain. He was not 
mistaken. Britain at once announced that she in her 
turn would prohibit the ships of other nations visiting 
French ports until they had first called at a British port. 
But two wrongs do not make a right. England also, being 
short of seamen by desertion, insisted that she had the 
right to search for British seamen on United States vessels. 

This was a questionable proceeding, and not always 
carried out in the most amiable manner, as the Chesapeake 
incident proves, and occasionally led to seizing American 
seamen, native-born citizens of the United States, in mis- 
take for British-born deserters. 

53 



The Story of Isaac Brock 

Meanwhile Brock found " the military and the people 
of Quebec divided by opposing elements of dissatisfac- 
tion." His call for one thousand men for two months to 
complete the defences of the Citadel was met by the Pro- 
vincial Government with what was practically a refusal. 
He persisted in his purpose, and despite drawbacks which 
would have deterred a less dominant nature, he erected a 
battery, mounting eight thirty-six pound guns, raised upon 
a cavalier bastion, in the centre of the Citadel, so as to 
command the opposite heights of Point Levis. 

Alive to the probability of invasion, and to the defence- 
less state of the Canadian frontier and the extreme apathy 
of the Quebec Government, Colonel Brock warned the 
War Office. He stated that, as the means at his disposal 
were quite inadequate to oppose an enemy in the field, 
with a provincial frontier of 500 miles, he would per- 
force confine himself to the defence of the city of Quebec. 
The Lower Canadians, willing to undergo training, had 
formed themselves into corps of cavalry, artillery and 
infantry, at no expense to the Government, but the Govern- 
ment gave them no encouragement. 

This was the state of affairs in Quebec when Lieutenant- 
General Sir James Craig arrived to take office as Gover- 
nor-General of the British Provinces in North America 
as well as Commander of the Forces. Brock soon became 
the confidant of the new administrator, who was not slow 
to observe the exceptional capacity of our hero. The day 
came all too quickly for the Governor when occasion arose 
for the presence of a strong man to take command in 
Montreal, and with great reluctance he had to call upon 
Isaac Brock to assume the office. 

54 



Fur-Traders and Habitants 



CHAPTER IX. 

FUR-TRADERS AND HABITANTS. 

Montreal — the Mount Royal of Jacques Cartier — was 
then in the heyday of its pioneer glory. It was the seat 
of government of the North- West Company, which exer- 
cised feudal sway over an empire of wilderness, lake and 
prairie, and whose title to monopoly was challenged only 
by the powerful Hudson's Bay Company. Since 1670 
this older syndicate of adventurers had held the destinies 
of the great lone land in the farther North-West, its fruit- 
ful plains and pathless forests, in the hollow of its hand. 
Later, when the two companies amalgamated, their joint 
operations extended from Alaska to Rupert's Land, from 
Oregon to the Sandwich Islands, from Vancouver to Lab- 
rador, an empire embracing an area of 4,500,000 square 
miles. 

At Montreal Brock lived with these merchant princes 
on terms of close intimacy. He was sensible enough, as 
a man of the world, to enjoy the creature comforts of life. 
The blazing log-fire, with its glow and crackle, in contrast 
to the blizzard that raged outside; the dim-lighted splen- 
dour of spacious dining-hall, with hewn rafters and savage 
trophies of the explorers ; the polished oak floor and carved 
ceiling, hung with rare fur and gaudy feathers, appealed 
to him. 

The rubber of whist over, came the fragrant perfecto 

55 



The Story of Isaac Brock 

— these traders ransacked the world for their tobacco — 
and Brock, under the influence of the soothing weed, would 
charm these wild vagrants into unlocking some of the strange 
secrets of the wilderness. From these usually silent but 
sometimes garrulous merchants he acquired during the 
long winter nights a fund of facts that greatly influenced 
his future actions. 

Being superseded at Montreal by General Drummond, 
he did not relish a return to Quebec. Separation from the 
49th meant actual pain, but, as he said, " Soldiers must 
accustom themselves to frequent movements, and as they 
have no choice, it often happens they are placed in situa- 
tions little agreeing with their wishes." His regrets were 
lessened by his promotion to the rank of brigadier-general. 
But he prayed for active service, still trying to secure a 
staff appointment in Portugal, and awaited the result of 
his brother Savery's efforts, hoping he might yet be 
ordered to join " the best disciplined army that ever left 
England." 

" Your Excellency," he said to the Governor-General, 
" I must see active service, or had much better quit the 
army, for I can look for no advantage if I remain buried 
in inaction in this remote corner of the earth, without the 
least mention ever likely being made of me." 

Unsuspected by Isaac Brock, fate in his case was only 
" marking time." 

Day after day he saw British ships weigh anchor 
at Quebec with Canadian timber for the building of 
English vessels of war. The importance of these Cana- 
dian provinces to Great Britain awoke in him dreams of 
a federation of all the colonies. Cargoes of timber, 

56 



Fur-Traders and Habitants 

that would require more than 400 vessels to transport, 
were then lying on the beaches of the St. Lawrence. 
" Bonaparte," he wrote, " coveted these vast colonial areas, 
and desired to repossess them." 

Brock's mind was busy trying to solve these problems. 
" A small French force of 5,000 men," he told the Gov- 
ernor, " could most assuredly conquer the Province of 
Quebec. In the event of Trench invasion, would the 
volatile Lower Canadian people, in spite of all their privi- 
leges, remain loyal ?" A certain class of habitant argued 
that Napoleon, who was sure to conquer Europe, would 
of course seize the Canadas, encouraged by the United 
States. " Would Englishmen," asked Brock, " if posi- 
tions were reversed, be any more impatient to escape 
from possible British rule than were French Canadians 
from the possible rule of France ?" 

"Blood, my good FitzGibbon," he declared to his 
protege, " is thicker than water. You cannot expect to 
get men to change their nature, or the traditions of their 
race, through an act of parliament at twenty-four hours' 
notice. Old thoughts and habits die hard." 

Though Brock's perceptive faculties were well developed, 
his forecasts, built upon the evidences of opposition among 
certain Lower Canadians, happily proved only in part cor- 
rect. Later, when his plan of campaign was menaced by 
still greater disaffection in Upper Canada, he found he 
had not reckoned on the influence of his own example, 
which, added to his power of purpose, " disconcerted the 
disloyal." In proof of this fact Detroit and Queenston 
Heights were splendid examples. 

It was this spirit of unrest among the people of Quebec 

57 



The Story of Isaac Brock 

that moved Sir James Craig to keep Brock within easy 
reach until the growing discord in Upper Canada called 
for the presence of a man of tact and resolution, one to 
whom all things seemed possible — and Brock knew no such 
word as " impossible." On one occasion the " faithful 
sergeant-major " had ventured to declare that a certain 
order was " impossible." " ' Impossible !' " repeated Brock, 
" nothing should be ' impossible ' to a soldier. The word 
' impossible ' must not be found in a soldier's vocabulary." 



58 



The Massacre at Mackinaw 



CHAPTER X. 

THE MASSACRE AT MACKINAW. 

It was while stationed in Montreal that our hero met 
Alexander Henry, ex-fur-trader and adventurer and 
coureur de hois — then a merchant and King's auctioneer 
— a notable personage and leader in many a wild exploit 
in the far West, an old though virile man after Isaac's 
own heart. 

From Henry he learned much of the Indian wars in 
the West, and the strategic value of various points on the 
frontier, possession of which in the event of war he fore- 
saw would be worth a king's ransom. Not least were 
details respecting Michilimackinac, the Mackinaw already 
referred to. Nearly half a century before, Henry, a 
native of New Jersey, of English parents — his ambition 
fired by tales of the fabulous fortunes to be made in the 
fur trade — obtained from the commandant at Montreal 
a permit to proceed west as a trader. He outfitted at 
Albany, and the following summer set out for Mackinaw. 

Meanwhile the Indian allies, under control of the great 
Pontiac, were fighting immigration and civilization. 
Between Fort Pitt — Pittsburgh — and the Fox River, in 
Wisconsin, the home of the Sacs and Foxes, they had 
captured nine out of thirteen military posts, and were 
secretly planning the downfall of Fort Mackinaw. This 
was regarded as an impregnable post and vulnerable only 
through strategy — in Indian parlance another name for 

59 



The Story of Isaac Brock 

duplicity. Fort Mackinaw, as Brock well knew, was the 
most important trading entrepot west of Montreal. It 
served a territory extending from the Missouri in the west 
to the far Kissaskatchewan in the north. 

On Henry's arrival his friendship was sought by an 
Indian chief, Wawatam. Between these two men a 
remarkable attachment developed. They became brothers 
by mutual adoption. At this time the fort was garrisoned 
by ninety British regulars. One day, outside the walls on 
the surrounding plateau, several hundred savages were 
encamped, ostensibly for purposes of trade, some of them 
killing time by playing the Indian game of ball — the 
baggatiway of the red-man, la jeu de la crosse of the 
voyageur. Henry, acting upon a veiled warning by 
Wawatam, suggested to the officer in command extra pre- 
caution. 

" I told him," said he, while Brock drank in every 
word, " that Indian treachery was proverbial." Now this 
recital was of the deepest interest to our hero, for 
Mackinaw, then in the possession of the United States, 
held the key to the Michigan frontier and control of the 
upper lakes. While the huge log fire that roared in the 
chimney cast light and shadow on polished wall and the 
oak beams of the big dining-hall, Brock puffed away at 
his huge partiga, weighing every word that fell from the 
bearded lips of the trader. 

" Major Errington," continued Henry, " while thank- 
ing me, laughed at my forebodings. Then Wawatam 
urged me, as his adopted brother, to depart for Sault Ste. 
Marie. But I delayed and once more sought Errington, 
who still ridiculed my fears. While I was yet expostulat- 

60 



The Massacre at Mackinaw 

ing with him we heard the louder shouts of the Indians. 
They had rushed through the fort gateway into the 
enclosure within the palisades in pursuit of a lost ball. 
This was but a ruse to gain admittance, for in a moment 
the laughter and shouts changed to wild yells and war- 
whoops. The guard was overpowered in a flash, and in 
the attack that followed almost the entire garrison was 
tomahawked and scalped." 

" Ah !" said Brock, " so British lethargy and self-com- 
plaisance succumbed to Indian duplicity." 

Then his thoughts turned to Niagara. He saw the open 
portals of Fort George, and Tuscarora youths playing the 
Indian game of ball in the meadows of the Mohawk village. 

" Those who escaped massacre at Mackinaw," said 
Henry, refilling his stone pipe and resuming his story, 
" were preserved for a worse fate. Pontiac's allies — and 
you, Colonel, know something of these matters from the 
tales told you by the officers of the North- West Company — 
entered on a carnival of blood. From a garret, where a 
Pawnee Indian woman had secreted me, I saw the 
captured soldiers tomahawked and scalped, and some 
butchered like so many cattle, just as required for the 
cannibal feast that followed." 

" Tortured ?" interrogated Brock. 

" Tortured !" repeated Henry. " Why, the diabolical 
devices that those men resorted to to inflict acute physical 
agony were inconceivable — unutterable, Colonel." He 
paused. ..." After all, no worse, perhaps, than the 
tortures that have been inflicted by civilized fanatics in 
Europe." 

There was silence for a moment. Both men were buried 

61 



The Story of Isaac Brock 

deep in thought, the one living in the past, the other 
striving to forecast the future. 

" Through the intercession of Wennway, another friendly 
Indian," continued Henry, " my life was spared. Prepara- 
tions were made for my secret departure. As I shoved my 
canoe into the water, en voyage for Wagoshene, the prayers 
of Wawatam rang in my ears as, standing on the yellow 
beach with outstretched arms, he invoked the Gitche 
Manitou, the Great Spirit, to conduct me in safety to the 
wigwams of my people." 

" Surely, Master Henry," commented Isaac Brock, 
" with all the latent qualities for good that seem to under- 
lie the outward ferocity of some redmen, firmness and 
kindness are alone needed to convert them into faithful 
friends." 

" An Indian, or Indians collectively," said Henry, 
pausing before he answered, — " I speak from personal 
experience only — are faithful so long as you keep abso- 
lute good faith with them. In this particular they are 
no different from white people ; but never deceive them, 
even in trifles, and never subject them to ridicule. Then, 
if you treat them with consideration, you can reasonably 
depend upon their individual loyalty. They expect a lot 
of attention. Yes ! an Indian is naturally grateful, prob- 
ably far more so than the ordinary white man, and seldom 
forgets a kindness. Should you come into closer contact 
with the redman, Colonel, as I have a presentiment you 
will before long, never forget that an Indian, by right of 
his mode of life, is deeply suspicious and painfully sensi- 
tive. He has a keen sense of humour, however, and is 
quick to discern and laugh at the weak points of others, 

62 



The Massacre at Mackinaw 

which, until you understand his language, you will be 
slow to suspect. On the other hand, he won't stand being 
laughed at himself or placed in a foolish position. For that 
matter, who can ? Occasionally you will meet a savage with 
strangely high principles. Among the redskins there is 
a proportion of good and bad, as there is in all races, but 
less crime, under normal conditions, than there is among 
the whites. So, summing up his vices and virtues, the 
North American Indian, allowing for heredity and sur- 
roundings, differs little from ourselves." 

" They are brave," interrupted Brock. 

" Oh, yes," said Henry, " splendidly reckless of life. 
The courage of the fatalist I should say. You see, they 
are so constantly on the war-path that fighting is a com- 
pulsory pastime." 

" Still," said Brock, " with what daring they fight for 
their homes." 

" True, Colonel," retorted Henry, " but when it comes 
to fighting for home, a hummingbird will defend its nest. 
Their peculiar traits are largely the result of a nomadic 
life and tribal strife, hence their duplicity. Superstition 
influences them greatly, as it does all savage races. In 
one respect they are at least superior to some of our own 
people — I refer to their treatment of their children. Their 
lovingkindness is pathetic. Contact with civilization, as 
you may discover, develops at first all their bad qualities, 
for they are apt imitators, so when the pagan Indian meets 
a trader without a conscience — and there are some, you 
know — why, he is not slow to adopt the bad Christian's 
methods." 



63 



The Story of Isaac Brock 



CHAPTER XI. 

LITTLE YORK, NIAGARA, AMHERSTBURG, 

In common with most great men, Brock found distraction 
in trifles. For weeks prior to leaving Quebec all kinds of 
gayety prevailed. A visit from Governor Gore of Upper 
Canada, and the arrival of the fleet from Guernsey and 
two frigates from Portsmouth, gave a fillip to society. 
Races, water-parties and country picnics were the order 
of the day. Our hero's contribution consisted of a ban- 
quet and grand ball. He had his own troubles, however, 
that even the versatile Dobson could not overcome, 
and he roundly scolded his brother Irving for not sending 
him a new cocked hat.* 

" That cocked hat," he said, " has not been received ; a 
most distressing circumstance, as from the enormity of 
my head I find the utmost difficulty in getting a substi- 
tute." 

His departure for York weighed upon him. In Quebec 
he had the most " delightful garden imaginable, with 
abundance of melons and other good things " — these, 

*Miss Carnochan, as the Curator of the Niagara Historical 
Society • the custodian of many relics of the war of 1812, has 
in her keeping this identical cocked hat. It arrived " shortly 
after Brock's death, and was given by his cousin to Mr. George 
Ball, near whose residence the 49th was stationed. The hat 
measures twenty-four inches inside, and was used at the funeral 
obsequies of 1824 and 1853, when many old soldiers requested, and 
were permitted, to try it on." The usage that the cocked hat then 
received has not improved its appearance. 

64 



Little York, Niagara, Amherstburg 

together with his new bastions and forts, he had to desert. 
Being somewhat of a philosopher, he said that since fate 
decreed the best portion of his life was to be wasted in 
inaction, and as President Jefferson, though he wanted 
war, was afraid to declare it, he supposed he should have 
to be pleased with the prospect of moving upwards. 

Brock had been but a few weeks at Fort George — a 
" most lonesome place," as compared with Quebec, Mont- 
real, Kingston, or even Little York, from which latter 
place he was cut off by forty miles of lake, or more than 
a hundred miles of dense forest and bridgeless streams — 
when he decided upon a flying trip to Detroit, where, 
during the French regime, the adventurous Cadillac had 
landed in 1701. He would inspect the western limit of 
the frontier now under his care and obtain at first hand 
a knowledge of the peninsula. " For," as he remarked to 
Glegg, his aide, " if I can read the signs aright, the two 
nations are rushing headlong into a military conflict." 

Two routes were open to him, one overland, the other 
land and water. He chose the latter. A vast quantity 
of freight now reached Queenston from Kingston. Vessels 
of over fifty tons sailed up the river, bearing merchandise 
for the North-West Company. Salt pork from Ireland 
and flour from London, Britain being the real base of 
supply — the remote North-West looking to Niagara for 
food and clothing — the return cargoes being furs and 
grain. To portage these goods around Niagara Falls 
kept fifty or more farmers' waggons busy every day dur- 
ing the summer. A team of horses or oxen could haul 
twenty " pieces," of one hundred weight each, for a load. 
The entire length of the portage from Lake Ontario to 
5 65 



The Story of Isaac Brock 

Lake Erie was practically a street, full of all the bustle 
and activity that a scattered country population of 12,000 
conferred upon it. Two churches, twenty stores, a print- 
ing house, six taverns and a scholastic academy supplied 
the varied wants of Niagara's 500 citizens who overfilled 
its one hundred dwellings. 

From Lake Ontario, Newark, as it had been called, 
presented an inviting appearance. The brick-and-stone 
court-house and jail and brightly painted Indian council- 
house and cottages rose in strong contrast against the green 
forest. On the river bank was Navy Hall, a log retreat 
for seamen, and on Mississauga (Black Snake) Point a 
stone lighthouse flashed its red signal of hope to belated 
mariners. Nearer the lake shore, in isolated dignity 
across a mile of common, stood Fort George, a dilapi- 
dated structure with wooden palisades and bastions. Half- 
acre lots in the village were given gratis by the Govern- 
ment to anyone who would build, and eight acres outside 
for inclosures, besides a large " commonty " for the use 
of the people. A quite pretentious wharf lined the 
river, and from this, on any summer afternoon, a string 
of soldiers and idle citizens might be seen — among whom 
was Dobson — casting hook and troll for bass, trout, pick- 
erel and herring, with which the river swarmed. On one 
occasion Brock helped to haul up a seine net in which were 
counted 1,008 whitefish of an average weight of two 
pounds, 6,000 being netted in one day. 

Side-wheel ferries, driven by horse-power, plied between 
the river's mouth and the Queenston landing. The paddle- 
wheels of these were open double-spoke affairs, without 
any circular rim. A stage-coach also ran between Queens- 

66 



Little York, Niagara, Amherstburg 

ton and Fort Erie, the first in Upper Canada. For one 
dollar the passenger could travel twenty-five miles. 

At Fort Erie, at the head of the Niagara Eiver, Brock 
embarked in mid-August in a government schooner. He 
wished to familiarize himself with the upper water-ways. 
He made the long trip from Quebec to York, and thence 
to Niagara, Amherstburg, Detroit, Sandwich and return 
overland to Fort George, within two months — record time. 
Dobson accompanied his master. Brock was silent as to 
his impressions, but admitted he was convinced that the 
water route for a military expedition was the only prac- 
tical one, and that Mackinaw, held by the United States, 
was the portal and key to the western frontier in case of 
invasion. He crossed overland through the " bad woods " 
and open plains to the Point of Pines, where batteaux and 
canoes awaited him. From thence he proceeded along the 
north shore of Lake Erie until abreast of the Miami, a 
confluent of the Ohio Eiver, on the south shore, then 
turned northward up the Detroit River, twenty-five miles 
farther, reaching Amherstburg — called Maiden by the 
Americans — 250 miles from Fort Erie. Here, after con- 
sulting with Colonel St. George, he inspected the battery 
at Sandwich, and with little ceremony visited Detroit — 
the old military post of Pontchartrain — on the opposite 
side of the river, later notorious as an emporium for 
" rum, tomahawks and gunpowder." From Amherstburg, 
a small village with an uncompleted fort and shipyard, he 
sent messengers to the remote post of St. Joseph, an island, 
fifty-five miles from Mackinaw, below Sault Ste. Marie, 
and started homewards overland. 

In returning, he skirted the great tributary marshes, 

67 



The Story of Isaac Brock 

alive with water-fowl of every description, whose gabble 
and flapping wings could be heard at a long distance. He 
camped in the vast hardwood forests that covered the 
western point of the peninsula that extends west from 
Lake Ontario to the river connecting Lake Huron with 
Lake Erie. He shot big bustards and wild turkeys in the 
bush, where wolves and deer were as thick as rabbits in a 
warren, and tramped the uplands, teeming with quail and 
prairie chicken. Continuing by Delaware and the Gov- 
ernment road at Oxford on the Thames, and by the " Long 
Woods " over the Burford Plains to Brant's Ford, he 
reached the Grand River, and then by Ancaster and the 
head of the lake to Burlington, when he followed the 
Lake Ontario southern shore road to Niagara. 

Many of the settlers whom he met were from the Eastern 
States. These were the original Loyalists or their descend- 
ants, patriots to the core. Other more recent arrivals — 
perhaps two-thirds of the whole — came from Pennsylvania, 
New York and New Jersey, attracted by the fertility of 
the soil and freedom from taxation, or to escape militia 
service. These latter he quickly realized were not the 
class to rely upon in event of war, but he gave no public 
sign of distrust. It was from the pick of the first-men- 
tioned stalwarts that Brock formed his loyal Canadian 
militia, his gallant supporters in the war of 1812, who 
made a reputation at Detroit and Queenston that will 
never die. 

He was more than ever sensible of the resources of the 
country. This glimpse of the west enamoured him. To 
his " beloved brothers " — our hero always thus addressed 
them — he described it as a " delightful country, far exceed- 

68 



Little York, Niagara, Amherstburg 

ing anything I have seen on this continent." The extent 
of the Great Lakes amazed him, as did their fish. From 
these deep cisterns he had seen the Indian fishermen take 
whitefish, the ahtikameg (deer-of-the-water), twenty 
pounds in weight ; maskinonge — matchi-lcenonje, the great 
pike — more than twice that size, and sturgeon that weighed 
two hundred pounds and over, and in such quantities that 
he hesitated to tell his experiences on his return. 

Henry's stories of five hundred whitefish taken with a 
scoop net at the rapids of Sault Ste. Marie in two hours 
were no longer questioned. The size of the red-fleshed 
land-locked trout (the quail-of-the-water), of pickerel and 
bass, astounded Brock. Travel had broadened his views. 
The chatter of his Iroquois and Algonquin friends was now 
easier of interpretation. The riddles of the wilderness 
were more easily read. He now realized how possible it 
was, in this continent of unsurveyed immensity, to jour- 
ney for weeks, after leaving the white man's domain 
hundreds of miles behind, and then reach only the rim 
of another kingdom of even far greater fertility. He also 
realized that beyond these laughing lands lay a rugged 
world of desolation, bounded in turn by the rasping ice- 
floes of the Arctic. 

If Brock's mind had expanded, so had his body. He 
was, as he expressed it, as " hard as nails." The close of 
1811 found " Master Isaac " a grand specimen of man- 
hood. Inclined to be a little portly, he was still athletic. 
His face, though a trifle stern, had grown more attractive, 
because of the benevolent look now stamped upon it. He 
was still fair and florid, with a broad forehead, and eyes 
though somewhat small, yet full and of a grayish blue, 

69 



The Story of Isaac Brock 

a charming smile and splendid white teeth. Always the 
same kindly gentleman and always a soldier. His life at 
Fort George had been one of great loneliness. He read 
much and rapidly, and would memorize passages from 
the books that had left the deepest impression. History, 
civil and military, especially ancient authors, was his 
choice, and maps his weakness. Over these, with his 
devoted aides, he would pore late into the night, until he 
knew the country almost as well as his friend the Surveyor- 
General. For variety he feasted upon the robust beauties 
of Pope's " Homer," ever regretting he never had a master 
" to guide and encourage him in his tastes." 

With Lieutenant-Governor Gore, formerly a soldier 
in Guernsey, Brock was on intimate terms. When the 
grind of duty let him, he would travel "the worst road 
in the country — fit only for an Indian mail-carrier — in 
order to mix in the society of York." He periodically 
returned these hospitalities by a grand ball at Niagara 
— always the event of the season. Brock, while fond of 
women's society, preferred brain to beauty. Had his 
old Guernsey friends been present on these occasions they 
would not have recognized in the soldier, resplendent in 
a general's uniform, now dancing a mazurka, the hand- 
some stripling who only a few years since had waltzed his 
way into the hearts of all the women of St. Peter's Port. 

The unrest of the Indians at Amherstburg troubled him. 
He had seen over eight hundred in camp there, receiving 
rations for a month while waiting presents of blankets, 
powder and shot from King George. They asked British 
support if they took the warpath against the Americans — 
the Long-knives — Gitchi-mokohmahn, their sworn enemies. 

70 



Little York, Niagara, Amherstburg 

Tecumseh, a Shawanese chief, had demanded from the 
United States the restoration of violated rights. This 
demand had not been complied with. The position was 
critical. Great tact was required to retain the friendship 
of the Indians, while not complying with their request. 

In Lower Canada there was still discord among the 
French Canadians. The Governor, Sir James Craig, in 
a dying condition, relinquished office. In answer to 
Brock's application for leave, still hoping for a staff 
appointment in Portugal, the Governor-General implored 
him to remain. 

" I must," he told him, " leave the country in the best 
state of security I can; your presence is needed here. I 
am sending you as a mark of my sincere regard my 
favourite horse, Alfred." This was a high-bred animal, 
and our hero's charger in the war that followed. 

It was not, however, until war was regarded as unavoid- 
able, and not until after he was promoted to be a major- 
general and appointed President and Administrator of 
Upper Canada, as successor to Governor Gore, that Isaac 
Brock became reconciled to life in Canada, and with set 
purpose assumed the duties of his high calling. 

Our hero had passed his third milestone. 



71 



The Story of Isaac Brock 

CHAPTER XII. 

MAJOR-GENERAL BROCK, GOVERNOR OF UPPER CANADA. 

The appointment of Brock — with his exceptional military- 
attainments — to the chief command in Upper Canada, 
at the point of greatest danger, was a rare piece of good 
fortune for the colony. Of the United States military 
leaders, Generals Howe, Dearborn and Wadsworth were 
all examples of a common standard; even Sir George 
Prevost, the new Governor-General of Canada and Com- 
mander-in-Chief, was tuned in a minor key. 

Isaac Brock was the man of the hour. His star was in 
the ascendant. Queen Victoria's father, the Duke of Kent, 
was anxious to meet the soldier whose despatches had 
stirred the War Office. The Duke of York was ready to 
give him a brigade under Wellington, while the Governor 
of Jamaica, the Duke of Manchester, then touring Canada, 
begged Brock, whom he looked upon as a " universal pro- 
vider," to equip him with canoes and guides for a western 
pilgrimage. If Brock's promotion brought him distinc- 
tion it also brought him work — Executive Councils, court- 
martials, reorganization of militia, reconstruction of the 
ruined forts on the Niagara frontier, the building of gun- 
boats, the making of roads. Never idle. To-day he was 
inspecting a camp of the 49th at Three Rivers, near 
Montreal ; next week at Fort Erie. Ever busy, ever 
buoyant. Whether perusing documents, scouring the 
muddy roads at Queenston, surveying the boundaries of 
the dreaded Black Swamp, or visiting the points between 

72 



Gen. Brock, Governor of Upper Canada 

Fort George and Vrooman's battery on his slashing gray 
charger, he had a smile and cheery word for everyone. 
As for Dobson, his profound awe at his master's progress 
was only equalled by his devotion, that increased with 
the illness that threatened his life; while the faithful 
sergeant-major, now Captain FitzGibbon, in command of 
a company of the 49th, was reflecting great credit on his 
patron. But no matter what the tax on his time, Isaac 
never neglected the " beloved brothers." 

In New York there had been financial failures. Brock 
predicted a dreadful crash, and had so written to his 
brother Irving, who with William had a bank in London. 
He hoped they " had withheld their confidence in public 
stocks." Providence ruled otherwise. While Isaac in 
the solitude of his quarters was writing this warning, the 
banking house in London, whose vessels in the Baltic Sea 
had been seized by Bonaparte's privateers, closed its doors. 
The news reached him on his birthday. He learned that 
a private advance made to him by William for the pur- 
chase of his commissions had been entered in the bank's 
books by mistake. He was a debtor to the extent of £3,000. 

Brock rose to the occasion. He proved himself not 
only a soldier but, best of all, a just man with the highest 
sense of personal honour. His distress was all for his 
brothers. He would sell his commission, turn over his 
income as governor and surrender everything, if by doing 
so he could save the fortunes of his family. Anything 
that not only the law but the right might demand. This 
failure impaired the former good fellowship between 
William and Irving Brock. Isaac wrote Irving, beseech- 
ing him to repair the breach. " Hang the world," said 
he ; " it is not worth a thought. Be generous, and find 

73 



The Story of Isaac Brock 

silent comfort in being so. Oh, my dear brother, forget 
the past and let us all unite in soothing the grief of one 
of the best hearts that heaven ever formed, whose wish 
was to place us all in affluence. Could tears restore him 
he would be happy." 

But Isaac was not permitted to know that reconciliation 
followed his prayers. While William and Irving were 
shaking hands, but before they had even heard of the 
capture of Detroit, Isaac, unknown to them, was at that 
moment lying cold in death within the cavalier bastion at 
Fort George. 

Little York was now Brock's headquarters. He built 
dockyards to shelter His Majesty's navy, which consisted 
of two small vessels ! He planned new Parliament Build- 
ings and an arsenal, prepared township maps showing 
roads and trails, fords and bridges, all of which latter 
were in a shocking condition. At York the timber and 
brushwood was so dense that travel between the garrison 
and town was actually by water. His mind made up 
that war with the United States was inevitable, he was con- 
fronted with crucial questions demanding instant solution. 
Chief of these was the defence of the frontier, 1,300 miles 
in length, which entailed repairs of the boundary forts, 
the raising of a reliable militia, the increase of the regular 
troops, the building of more gunboats, and the solving of 
the Indian problem. 



74 




-x 

W 

< 

a 

In 



The War Cloud 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THE WAR CLOUD. 

A President of the United States had breezily declared 
that the conquest of Canada would be " a mere matter 
of marching." The final expulsion of England from the 
American continent he regarded as a matter of course. 
Cabinet ministers at Washington and rabid politicians 
looked upon the forcible annexation of Canada as a fore- 
gone conclusion. 

One Massachusetts general officer, a professional fire- 
eater, said he " would capture Canada by contract, raise 
a company of soldiers and take it in six weeks." Henry 
Clay, another statesman, " verily believed that the militia 
of Kentucky alone were competent to place Upper Canada 
at the feet of the Americans." Calhoun, also a " war- 
hawk," had said that " in four weeks from the time of 
the declaration of war the whole of Upper and part of 
Lower Canada would be in possession of* the United 
States." All of this was only the spread-eagle bombast of 
would-be filibusters, as events proved, but good cause for 
Brock, who had been appointed janitor of Canada and 
been given the keys of the country, to ponder deeply. 

Canada's entire population was nearly 320,000— about 
the same as that of Toronto to-day — that of the United 
States was 8,000,000 ! To defend her broken frontier 
Canada had only 1,450 British soldiers and a militia 
— at that moment — chiefly on paper. If the Indians in 

75 



The Story of Isaac Brock 

the West were to be impressed with British supremacy — 
for they were making a stand against 2,000 American 
soldiers on the banks of the Wabash, in Ohio, where 
eighteen years before they had been beaten by General 
Wayne at Miami — then Amherstburg must be greatly 
strengthened and the Americans deterred from attack. 
How was Brock to obtain troops, and how were they to 
be equipped ? The stores at Fort York were empty, pro- 
visions costly, and no specie to be had. All the frontier 
posts needed heavier batteries. On Lake Erie the fleet 
consisted of the Queen Charlotte and the small schooner 
Hunter. As to the militia, he had been advised that it 
would not be prudent to arm more than 4,000 of the 
11,000 in all Canada prepared to bear arms. 

To Brock's citation of thirty pressing wants Sir George 
Prevost wrote him, " You must not be led into any 
measure bearing the character of offence, even should war 
be declared." Prevost had a fluid backbone, while Brock's 
was of finely tempered steel. 

While affairs were in this precarious state His Excel- 
lency the Lieutenant-Governor, Major-General Brock, 
opened the Legislature at York. With what pride the 
news was received by the good people at St. Peter's Port 
can be imagined. To think that this great man, gorgeous 
in a purple Windsor uniform and slender court sword, 
with gleaming silk hose and hair aglitter with silver 
powder, was none other than " Master Isaac," whom the 
humblest Guernsey fisherman claimed as comrade, seemed 
past belief ! To think that this important gentleman, with 
frilled waistcoat and cuffs of delicate lace — actually the 
King's Deputy — before whom, as " Your Excellency," 
Indian and paleface, gentle and simple, bowed low, was 

76 



The War Cloud 

the small boy who used to play " uprooting the gorse " 
with the Guernsey fisher-lads — was beyond comprehension. 
Probably the one least affected by these honours was our 
hero himself. While it gratified his honest pride, it did 
not in the least cloud his vision. His speech from the 
throne proves this. 

" It is a glorious contest in which the Empire is 
engaged," he said, " to secure the independence of Europe, 
but what can we think of the American Government, which 
is trying to impede her effort. . . . The ships of 
England," he continued, " had been refused shelter in 
United States harbours, while refuge had been extended 
to the ships of our inveterate enemies." He reminded the 
colonists that " insulting threats had been offered to the 
flag and hostile preparations made." He praised the 
militia, and, while wishing for peace, declared that 
" Canada must prepare for war, relying on England's 
support in her hour of peril." He asked the Legislature 
to assent to three things of vital importance — the suspen- 
sion of the Habeas Corpus Act, the passage of a law to 
regulate the privileges of aliens, and an Act providing for 
rewards to be paid to the captors of deserters. 

It was a house divided against itself, and it turned a deaf 
ear to Brock's appeal. " To the great influence of Ameri- 
can settlers over the members of the Lower House," he 
attributed this defeat. A court-martial revealed the fact 
that one of the best known militia regiments was com- 
posed almost entirely of aliens from the United States! 
The United Empire Loyalists thronged to his banner. 

Undaunted by the cheap prudence of Prevost, a hostile 
Legislature, and the difficulties that beset him, Brock took 
off his coat, rolled up his sleeves, and all but single-handed 

77 



The Story of Isaac Brock 

— " off his own bat," as Dobson explained it to an admir- 
ing crowd in the barrack-room — wrought like the hero 
that he was for the salvation of his country. He became 
a machine, a machine working at high pressure eighteen 
hours out of twenty-four. He had developed into a very 
demon for work. 

With an empty treasury and no hope of reinforcements 
— every soldier England could spare was fighting in Spain 
— he raised flank companies of militia to be attached to 
the regular regiments. The Glengarry sharpshooters, four 
hundred strong, were enlisted in three weeks. A new 
schooner was placed on the stocks. He formed a car- 
brigade of the young volunteer farmers of York and 
removed incompetent officers. 

Fort George, constructed of earthen ramparts, with 
honeycombed cedar palisades which a lighted candle could 
set fire to, with no tower or block-house, and mounting only 
nine-pound guns, he knew was incapable of resistance. It 
invited destruction from any battery that might be erected 
at Youngstown on the American side, while confronting it 
was Tort Niagara, built of stone, mounting over twenty 
heavy guns, containing a furnace for heating shot, and 
formidable with bastions, palisades, pickets and dry ditch. 
The tension at Niagara was trying. Two officers of the 
41st were expelled for killing dull care by dissipation. A 
Canadian merchant schooner was boarded in mid-lake by 
a United States brig, taken to Sackett's Harbour and 
stripped. The Americans were pouring rations and muni- 
tions of war into Detroit. If Brock's hands were shackled, 
he knew the art of sitting tight. He made another flying 
trip to Amherstburg, taking one hundred men of the 41st, 
in the face of Prevost's standing orders to " exercise the 

78 



The War Cloud 

strictest economy." Handicapped on every side, doing 
his best and preparing for the worst, he wrote Prevost that 
his " situation was critical," but he " hoped to avert dire 
calamity." 

The river bank between Fort George and Queenston 
for seven miles was patrolled night and day. A watch 
was placed on Mississauga lighthouse from daylight to 
dusk, and beacon masts, supporting iron baskets filled 
with birchbark and pitch, were erected on the heights to 
announce, in event of hostilities, the call to arms. 

At this time one of Brock's most intimate friends — his 
chosen adviser — was Mr. Justice William Dummer Powell, 
later Chief Justice of Upper Canada, and former Speaker 
of the House. At the judge's house and at Tordarroch, 
the log mansion of General iEneas Shaw — another inti- 
mate, and Adjutant-General of Militia — Brock was wont 
to repair for a few hours' rest from official cares. It was 
at Tordarroch (Oak Hall), on the outskirts of York, that 
the great Duke of Kent had been a guest. When at Fort 
George our hero usually lived with Colonel Murray, of 
the 100th, and " charming Mrs. Murray," as he was fond 
of calling her, in their " pretty cottage," and if not there 
he was a constant visitor at the house of Captain John 
Powell, a son of the judge and son-in-law of General Shaw, 
between whose daughter, Sophia Shaw, and Isaac Brock 
there had developed a deep attachment. Here he whiled 
away spare moments with whist and cribbage, " diver- 
sions," he said, " that sharpened a man's wits." He would 
shoot wild pigeons and spruce partridges in the adjacent 
bush, or take long gallops, frequently alone, over the plains 
beyond the Heights of Queenston, ever on the lookout for 
new bridle-paths and point-to-point trails. 

79 



The Story of Isaac Brock 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA DECLARES WAR. 

It came at last! On June 18th, 1812, after weeks of 
preparation, placing an embargo on shipping, putting 
100,000 militia on a war footing on the pretence of hos- 
tilities among the Indians, calling out the volunteers and 
raising a special public fund, Congress under President 
Madison declared war against Great Britain. 

This did not end Brock's suspense. ISTot until five 
weeks later did he receive official notice from Prevost. 
Despite opposition from many states, which declared their 
detestation of an alliance with Bonaparte, after a stormy 
debate behind closed doors at Washington, Congress voted 
for war against England, with Canada as the point of 
attack. The United States placed itself on record as 
approving of " forcible invasion of a neighbouring peace- 
ful country and its rights, and of taking property on which 
it had no shadow of claim." 

The offensive " right of search " of American ships by 
British warships for deserters was, of course, given as 
the excuse for war. The United States Government con- 
tended that a nation's flag protected the cargoes of the 
vessels of that nation. To search for contraband or for 
deserters on such ships, President Madison declared, was 
a violation of international law. In direct violation of 
the United States' own interpretation of this decree, her 
war-frigate President blew the British gunboat Little Belt, 

80 



The United States of America Declares War 

half her own size, almost out of the water because of the 
refusal of her commander to allow such search. 

It is interesting to remember that while the United 
States contended that Britain had no right to search the 
ships of other nations, she actually allowed her own offi- 
cials, in the case of a United States sailor who had become 
a citizen of France and an officer in the French navy, to 
search the foreign vessel upon which he served and arrest 
him as a deserter. A more flagrant violation of the 
principles she professed is difficult to imagine. She 
insisted that this officer was still a citizen of the United 
States, for he could not become a citizen of another coun- 
try without the consent of the government of his native 
country. So, when it suited her purpose, and in direct 
defiance of her own proclamation, she did not hesitate 
to accept England's contention and adopt the " obnoxious 
doctrine " — thus practising the identical principle against 
which she had declared war. Truly glaring inconsistency. 

While these were the chief of the alleged reasons for 
war, the whole world knew that the real cause was the 
jealousy and hatred felt for England by a certain class 
of United States citizens who " were bound to pick a 
quarrel with John Bull, excuse or no excuse." That there 
were many and irritating faults on the part of England 
cannot be denied. In the light of subsequent events it 
is not difficult to realize that both governments were in 
the wrong. The wisdom born of bitter experience and 
the sincere friendship of the two nations to-day, sensibly 
founded on mutual respect, happily renders a repetition 
of such regrettable scenes outside the pale of possibility. 

Strange to say, England had revoked the objectionable 
Order-in-Council authorizing right of search of American 
6 81 



The Story of Isaac Brock 

ships for deserters by British men-of-war the very day 
before war was declared by the United States. There 
was no ocean cable in those days. Had there been, this 
story might never have been written. The removal, how- 
ever, of this one reason for war was not — when letters 
duly arrived from England announcing the fact — accepted 
by the United States as a reason for an immediate declara- 
tion of peace. This proves that the reasons advanced by 
the United States for going to war were from first to 
last not genuine, but mere excuses. Canada was as 
Naboth's vineyard, and Ahab, in the person of the United 
States, coveted it. England hesitated to draw the sword 
on a people " speaking a common tongue, with institu- 
tions based upon her own," but she could not always be 
expected to " turn the other cheek to the smiter." 

The United States called out an army of 15,000 men 
for purposes of attack on the Niagara frontier, and com- 
manded General Wadsworth — of course, on paper — " to 
feed and cherish them." How well he executed this com- 
mand remains to be seen. 

What of Canada ? Her yeomen forsook ploughshare 
and broadaxe, seized sword and musket, and rallied to the 
standard of Brock. In Upper Canada there was an active 
force of 950 regulars and marines and 550 militia. This 
little army had to defend the seven forts of Kingston, York, 
George, Erie, Chippewa, Amherstburg, and St. Joseph, 
not one of which was a fortress of strength, to patrol the 
lakes and protect a most vulnerable frontier. It was the 
opinion of leading military authorities that Canada could 
never be held against such an enemy. 

Brock was at York when the news reached him. He 
at once sent part of the 41st to Niagara by lake, crossing 

82 



The United States of America Declares War 

himself with his brigade-major, Evans, and Macdonell 
and Glegg, his aides, and, as usual, in a batteau, with 
eleven men. At Fort George he bade adieu to some Ameri- 
can officers, guests of the mess, and sent them across the 
river. He was eager to storm Fort Niagara, whose cap- 
ture might have changed the entire situation, but alas! 
what of his instructions ? 

He called out more militia, though he had only a few 
tents and many of the men were drilling without shoes. 
One hundred Tuscaroras under Chief Brant answered 
his summons. He divided his augmented Niagara force 
into four divisions — at Fort Erie 400 men, at Fort Chip- 
pewa 300, at Queenston 300, at Fort George 500. Of 
these, 900 were militia. 

The rattle of the matchlock was as familiar as cockcrow. 
Every man became in fact, if not in deed, a volunteer. 
If the musket was not strapped to the tail of the plough, 
it leaned against the snake-fence — loaded. The goose-step, 
the manual and platoon took the place of the quadrille. 
Every clearing became a drill-hall, every log cabin an 
armoury. Many of the militia were crack shots, with all 
the scouting instincts of the forest ranger. In the barrack- 
square, in scarlet, white and green, the regulars drilled 
and went through wondrous evolutions with clock-work 
precision — fighting machinery with the tenacity of the 
bull-dog, though lacking the craft of the woods that had 
taught the volunteer the value of shelter and the wisdom 
of dwelling on his aim. 

Apart, stolid and silent, but interested spectators, 
lounged the dusky redmen, forever sucking at their 
pwoighun-ahsin (stone pipes) and making tobacco from 

83 



The Story of Isaac Brock 

the inner bark of red-willow wands, watching and won- 
dering. The foot soldiers carried fire-locks, flints and 
cartridge boxes. These smooth-bore flint-locks had an 
effective range of less than 100 yards, and could be dis- 
charged only once a minute. Very different to the 
modern magazine rifle, which can discharge twenty-five 
shots in a minute and kill at 4,200 yards, while within 
2,000 yards it is accurate and deadly. The mounted men 
were armed with sabres and ponderous pistols. 

Our hero addressed the militia. The enemy, he told 
them, intended to lay waste the country. " Let them be 
taught," he said, " that Canadians would never bow their 
necks to a foreign yoke." As the custodian of their rights, 
he was trying to preserve all they held dear. He looked 
to them to repel the invaders. 

Brock was placed in a most peculiar position, for while 
the passive Prevost was still instructing him — nearly three 
weeks after the declaration of war — " to take no offensive 
measures, as none would be taken by the United States 
Government," General Hull, with a force of 2,500 tried 
soldiers, was on his way from Ohio through the Michigan 
forests to occupy Detroit and invade Canada. Hull 
reached Detroit, and four days later, with his entire com- 
mand, crossed the river and occupied Sandwich. But the 
trip was attended with serious mishap to his army, for 
Lieutenant Roulette, of the British sloop Hunter — a 
brother of the famous fur-trader — in a small batteau, 
with only six men, captured the United States packet 
Cayuga, with a detachment of five officers and thirty-three 
soldiers, as she was coming up the river. The Cayuga's 
treasure consisted not only of valuable stores and baggage, 

84 



The United States of America Declares War 

but Hull's official correspondence with the United States 
Secretary of War. The contents of this decided Brock, 
though he had no idea Hull's army was so strong, to 
attempt the reduction of Fort Detroit without a moment's 
delay. 

The very hour he knew that war was declared he had 
notified the officer at St. Joseph. Our hero, whose root 
idea of a soldier's craft was " secrecy in conception and 
vigour in execution," had no taste for Prevost's mad doc- 
trine that the aggressed had to await the convenience of 
the aggressor. Brock had been taught to regard tolerance 
in war as an " evil of the first magnitude," and so had 
already instructed the commander at St. Joseph that if 
war was proclaimed he was to attack Mackinaw at once, 
but if attacked, " defend your post to the last." Prevost 
at the same time had ordered this officer " in case of 
necessity to effect his own retreat," never dreaming he 
would dare attack Mackinaw. What a contrast the 
despatches of these two men present! The one full of 
confidence, fight and resistance, the other shrinking from 
action and suggesting retreat. Brock's despatch was of 
later date and more palatable to the fighter at St. Joseph. 
He started at once for Mackinaw, fifty-five miles distant, 
with 45 of the 10th Royal veterans, 180 Canadians, many 
of whom were traders and voyageurs, and convoyed by 
the brig Caledonia, owned by the ISTorth-West Fur Com- 
pany. 

He landed before daybreak. By noon of that day the 
Union Jack was floating above the basalt cliffs of the 
Gibraltar of the north, and also over two of the enemy's 
vessels laden with furs. It is not on record that Captain 
Roberts was recommended by General Sir George Prevost 

85 



The Story of Isaac Brock 

for promotion ! The Indians at Amherstburg were now 
ready to support the British. Foremost among these was 
the great Shawanese warrior, Tecumseh. 

General Hull, having meantime billeted himself in 
Colonel Baby's big brick house at Sandwich, issued a 
proclamation to the " inhabitants of Canada." As a 
sample of egotism, bluff and bombast it stands unrivalled. 
He told the inhabitants of Canada that he was in posses- 
sion of their country, that an ocean and wilderness isolated 
them from England, whose tyranny he knew they felt. 
His grand army was ready to release them from oppres- 
sion. They must choose between liberty and security, as 
offered by the United States, and war and annihilation, 
the penalty of refusal. He also threatened instant destruc- 
tion to any Canadian found fighting by the side of an 
Indian, though General Dearborn, in command of the 
United States forces at Niagara, had been authorized by 
the United States Secretary of War " to organize the 
warriors of the Seneca Indians " for active service against 
Canada. 

The United States Secretary of War wrote to Hull, 
saying his action respecting Canadian Indians " met with 
the approval of the Government." Evidently ashamed, 
upon reflection, of Hull's threat, that same Government 
later instructed its commissioners at the Treaty of Ghent, 
when peace was restored, "to disown and disavow" their 
former Indian policy. 

Hull's extraordinary production, which proved a boom- 
erang, was really the work of Colonel Lewis Cass, his 
Chief of Staff ; but while Hull and Cass were " unload- 
ing their rhetoric at Sandwich," Isaac Brock was " loading 
his guns at Mackinaw." 

86 



Brock Accepts Hull's Challenge 



CHAPTEK XV. 

BROCK ACCEPTS HULL'S CHALLENGE 

With the country's call for a saviour had arisen the man 
so sorely needed. Vigilant, sagacious and brave, but with 
most inadequate forces, Brock, faced by a crisis, hurried 
to repel the invasion by Hull. If Canada was to be 
saved, Detroit, as well as Mackinaw, must be reduced. The 
confidence also of the savages must be retained. The 
smallness of his army demanded the neutrality of the 
redmen, if not their active aid. 

The plan of his campaign was laid before his Executive 
Council and the members of his staff. As they parted at 
the door of the General's quarters at midnight, preceding 
the day on which their gallant leader issued his counter 
reply to Hull, his final words were : " To hold Amherst- 
burg, gentlemen, is of vital importance. It is the western 
base from which we must resist attack and advance upon 
Detroit. It must be held in force." 

Brock's written answer to Hull's flamboyant address — 
edited by his wise adviser, Judge Powell — was eloquent 
and dignified. Hull's invitation to Canadians to seek pro- 
tection from Britain under the flag of the United States 
was, he said, " an insult." He cited the advantages of 
British connection, and warned the colonists that seces- 
sion meant the restitution of Canada to the Empire of 
France. This was the price to be paid by the United States 

for the aid given by Prance to the revolting States during 

87 



The Story of Isaac Brock 

the War of Independence. He reminded them of the con- 
stancy of their fathers. " Are you prepared to become 
slaves to this despot ]STapoleon, who rules Europe with a 
rod of iron? If not, arise, repel the invader and give 
your children no cause to reproach you with sacrificing 
the richest inheritance of earth, participation in the name, 
character and freedom of Britons." 

He told them not to be dismayed by the enemy's threat 
to " refuse them quarter should an Indian appear in their 
ranks." " Why," he continued, " should the brave bands 
of Indians which now inhabit this colony be prevented 
from defending their new homes ?" These poor people, 
he reminded them, had actually been punished for their 
former fidelity to the United States, by the Government 
of that country taking from them their old homes in Ohio. 
The King of England had granted them a refuge and 
given them superior lands in Canada. Why were they 
to be denied the right to defend their hearths " from inva- 
sion by ferocious foes," who, while utilizing Indians 
themselves, had condemned the practice in others? The 
threat to refuse quarter to these defenders of invaded 
rights would, he said, bring about inevitable reprisal, for 
" the national character of Britain was not less distin- 
guished for humanity than retributive justice." 

The obstacles surrounding Brock would have driven an 
ordinary man to distraction. It is not possible to recite a 
fraction of them. The Grand Eiver Indians, having 
received a specious letter from Hull, refused to join the 
relief expedition for Moraviantown, on the Thames, on 
which some of Hull's freebooters were marching. Some 
of the militia declined to leave their homes, suspicious, 

88 



Brock Accepts Hull's Challenge 

they said, of Indian treachery. Some, with blood relations 
in the States, refused point blank to take up arms. Others 
were busy harvesting, while not a few came out openly as 
traitors and joined the ranks of Hull. Brock had no 
reinforcements of regular troops, and small chance of 
getting any, and, what was far worse, he received little 
moral support even from the Legislature, and none from 
other sources from which he had a right to expect it. He 
called an extra session of the House to enact laws to meet 
the crisis, to invest him with greater authority and to 
vote money for defence. He closed his Speech from the 
Throne with a declaration delivered in sonorous, ringing 
tones that echoed throughout the chamber: 

" We are engaged in an awful and eventful contest. 
By unanimity and vigour we may teach the enemy this 
lesson, that a country defended by free men, devoted to 
the cause of their King and constitution, can never be 
conquered." 

Though Brock's speech " inspired the faithful and 
foiled the designs of some of the faithless," his demands 
were conceded in part only, and he left for Tort George 
with heart filled with misgivings. In answer to his request, 
Prevost declined to define the extent of the authority with 
which he had himself vested him. Extreme measures, 
he told him, must be taken at his own risk. Our hero 
was one of those limited few who had sounded the depths 
of the truth that it was easier to do one's duty than to 
know it. His shrewdness and self-reliance came to the 
rescue. Seeing that the ISTiagara River would be selected 
as the point for invasion, he made it his defensive frontier, 
while the Detroit River was the offensive front of his 

89 



The Story of Isaac Brock 

campaign. These views he outlined to his staff on the 
night following the prorogation of the House. 

Judge Powell, after a long session of Council, the last 
to depart, was rising to leave. " Then, sir," said Colonel 
Macdonell, General Brock's new provincial aide, the young 
and brilliant Attorney-General of Upper Canada — engaged 
to Mary Powell, the daughter of the judge — " you really 
believe we can bombard Detroit successfully? The fort 
has, I understand, parapets twenty feet high, with four 
bastions, surrounded by palisades, a ditch and a glacis, 
and is capable of withstanding a long siege ; besides which 
it has 2,500 fighting men to defend it." 

" My good Macdonell," responded Brock, interest 
and deep regard imprinted on his face, " we fortunately 
know from Hull's own letters that he has as little con- 
fidence in his army as they have confidence in him. I 
fancy he is merely whistling to keep up his courage. A 
bold front on our part, with a judicious display of our 
small force, will give him cause to reflect. Then, pro- 
vided we enthuse the Indians — and if Mackinaw is fallen, 
this should not be difficult — Detroit is ours!" 

" How about Amherstburg and Sandwich, General ?" 
interjected Justice Powell. " Their safety is essential to 
your plan." 

" As to Amherstburg," said Brock, " it is the pivot 
point, sir, and must be retained as our base. At Sand- 
wich we already have earthworks completed. If destroyed 
by Hull they must be rebuilt, for the batteries there must 
cover our crossing and cannonade the fort while we 
advance upon it. I have already sent, as you know, a 
few additional men to Procter — every man I can steal 

90 



Brock Accepts Hull's Challenge 

from here. He should be able to hold his own at Amherst- 
burg for a bit longer. The conditions, I admit, are far 
from satisfactory under the present command, but Cham- 
bers is on his way with forty of the 41st, one hundred 
militia with Merritt, and some of Brant's braves, to put 
backbone into the garrison." 

" General," said Justice Powell, the rays from a waning 
moon flooding the hall-way as the outer door was opened 
by Brock for the exit of his councillors, " having implicit 
confidence in your judgment and military ability, I believe 
you will overthrow Hull. Assuming that you capture old 
Fort Lernoult and seize Detroit, what then?" 

" What then, sir ?" said Brock — emphasizing his parting 
words with a gesture of his hand — "why, Detroit taken, 
I shall return here, batter Fort Niagara — providing 
Prevost consents — and then by a sudden movement I 
could sweep the frontier from Buffalo to Fort Niagara 
and complete the salvation of Canada by the occupation 
of Sackett's Harbor. Good-night, gentlemen. En avant, 
Detroit !" 



91 



The Story of Isaac Brock 



CHAPTER XVI. 

"EN AVANT, DETROIT!" 

Under an August moon Lake Erie shone as a shield of 
silver. Brock, with a fleet of small craft, batteaux and 
boats of every kind given him by the settlers, had pulled 
out from Long Point with 40 regulars and 260 militia 
for the relief of Amherstburg, two hundred miles distant. 

The news of the fall of Mackinaw and the official 
declaration of war had only reached him as Parliament 
rose. He had proclaimed martial law before leaving York. 
He had also heard details of the attack by Hull's raiders 
on the Moravian settlement, sixty miles up the Thames. 
He knew of the repulse of 300 United States troops in 
three attempts to cross the Canard River bridge for an 
attack on Amherstburg, and of their being driven into 
the open plains, with loss, by Procter's men. 

It was in one of these attacks that the first scalp in 
the war of 1812 was taken — not by one of Brock's ter- 
rible Indians, whose expected excesses had been referred 
to by Hull, but by a captain of Hull's spies. This officer 
— one hates to describe him as a white man — wrote his 
wife, he " had the pleasure of tearing a scalp from the 
head of a British redskin," and related at length the 
brutal details of his methods. They were those of a wild 
beast. " The first stroke of the tomahawk," Hull had 
stated in his proclamation, " the first attempt with the 
scalping-knife, will be the signal of a scene of desolation." 
Yet the first scalp taken in the Detroit campaign was by 
one of his own officers ! 

92 



"En Avant, Detroit !" 

Brock knew that the valorous Hull, dismayed at the 
advance of the British, had recrossed the river with all 
but 250 of his men and was hard at work on the defences 
of Fort Shelby, behind which he had retired. Brock also 
knew of the affair at Brownstown, where the Indian chief 
Tecumseh, with twenty-five warriors, had separated himself 
from Major Muir's detachment, sent to intercept a trans- 
port on its way from Ohio to Detroit with supplies for 
Hull. He had been told of the stratagem by which the 
great Shawanese warrior had ambushed the 200 American 
soldiers, near the Raisin River, who had marched from 
Detroit to escort this convoy and the mails. Seven 
American officers were killed at the Raisin, twelve of all 
ranks wounded, and seventy reported missing after the 
fight. In addition to the provision train, Tecumseh cap- 
tured what was of much greater importance, another 
batch of Hull's despondent despatches. It was here that 
swift justice overtook the scalping Captain McCullough, 
of Hull's spies, who himself met with the fate of his 
former victim — the fate he deserved. 

Brock also received despatches describing the daring 
attack by Lieutenant Roulette, of the provincial marine, 
who in a small boat with a handful of men had boarded 
and seized in the Detroit River a brigade of eleven bat- 
teaux! These, loaded with food, were on their way from 
Black Rock, and now carried fifty-six wounded American 
soldiers and two English prisoners. This bold feat of 
" cutting out " took place under the eyes of an armed 
escort of 250 United States regulars marching along the 
river bank. 

Messengers from Procter had also informed Brock of 
the fight at Magnagua, fourteen miles below Detroit. It 

98 



The Story of Isaac Brock 

was here that Muir, with 200 regulars and militia and 
less than 200 Indians, instead of waiting to be attacked, 
recklessly assailed a force of 600 of the enemy who were 
halted on the edge of the oak forest, supported by two six- 
pounder guns. Fighting without hope against such odds, 
the British were outflanked, Muir himself wounded, and 
an officer killed — the second British soldier to fall in 
the war of 1812. The American loss was eighteen killed 
and sixty-three wounded. Though the difference in arms 
and men was greatly in favour of the Americans, the 
British were enabled to retreat to the river, where they 
regained their boats. The American force, suffering from 
greater casualties, did not attempt to follow them. 

Apart from the inferior strength of the British, the 
chief cause of their reverse at Maguagua was the blunder 
of some men of the 41st, who fired upon a body of 
Tecumseh's Indians. In rushing from the woods the 
redmen were mistaken for the enemy, and falling into a 
similar error themselves, they returned with interest the 
fire of the British soldiers. The disorder that followed 
created a panic. While Tecumseh with his own Indians 
fought bravely, the seventy Lake Indians under Caldwell 
suffered from " chill " and fled at the first shot. The 
most encouraging of these facts, when told to the expedi- 
tion, aroused in Brock's followers a wild desire to meet 
Hull's army in battle. 

Our hero's trip from Long Point was full of peril and 
hardship. The lake shore in places was extremely rugged. 
Precipitous cliffs of red clay and sun-baked sand rose two 
hundred feet from the boulder-strewn coast. Scarcely a 
creek offered shelter. The weather was unusually stormy. 
A heavy surf boomed on the shore. Flocks of water-fowl 

94 



"En Avant, Detroit !" 

were driven before the wind. The men were drenched 
by torrents of rain. Though thirty miles in twenty-four 
hours was considered the maximum distance for rowing 
a batteau, nothing could retard this strange armada or 
dampen the confidence of the men in their resolute leader, 
who in an open boat led the way. In this boat, which was 
" headquarters," were Brock and his two aides. A lighted 
flambeau at the bow acted as a beacon during the night. 
After five days of great vigilance and galley-slave work, 
the toilers reached Amherstburg. Without the help of 
these hardy and resourceful men of the Canadian militia 
this trip could not have been accomplished. 

The conduct of these bold frontiersmen aroused Brock's 
admiration. His own example had again acted as an 
inspiration. Shortly after leaving Port Talbot, his bat- 
teau, pounding in the sea, ran upon a reef that extended 
far from shore, and despite oars and pike-poles, remained 
fast. In the height of the confusion " Master Isaac " 
sprang overboard, and a moment later voyageur and raw 
recruit, waist deep in water, following the example of 
the hero of Castle Cornet, lifted the batteau over the 
dangerous ledge. 

When at midnight the boats passed up the Strait — 
through which the ambitious La Salle and Father Henne- 
pin had passed in 1679 — and grated on the gravel beach 
at Amherstburg, Brock was greeted with a volley of mus- 
ketry by the Indians. This was contrary to his rigid 
rubric of war. Such waste of powder must not be toler- 
ated. He turned to the Indian superintendent, " Do pray, 
Colonel Elliott," said he, " explain my reasons for object- 
ing to the firing and tell the Chiefs I will talk with them 
to-morrow." 

95 



The Story of Isaac Brock 



CHAPTER XVII. 

OUR HERO MEETS TECUMSEH. 

A few minutes only had elapsed when Elliott returned. 
The sentry's challenge caused Brock to look up from the 
table, littered with plans and despatches. Another figure 
darkened the doorway. 

" This, sir," said Elliott, " is Tecumseh, the Shawanese 
chief of whom you have heard, and who desires to be 
presented to you." 

The General, who had removed the stains of travel and 
was in uniform, rose to his full height, bowed, extended 
his hand and explained in manly fashion the reason for 
asking that the firing be stopped. The contrast presented 
by the two men was striking. The old world and the 
new, face to face — a scene for the brush of an impres- 
sionist. Brock, tall, fair, big-limbed, a blue-eyed giant, 
imposing in scarlet coat and blue-white riding trousers, 
tasselled Hessian boots, and cocked-hat in hand. On his 
benevolent face was an irresistible smile. 

The Indian, though of middle height, was of most per- 
fect proportions, an athlete in bronze, lithe and supple 
as a panther. His oval face, set in a frame of glistening 
black hair, shone like a half-polished copper relief. Over- 
looking the nose, straight as one of his own arrows, and 
from which some tinkling silver coins were suspended, a 
pair of hawk-like eyes, hazel-black and unflinching — in 
which the secrets of the world seemed slumbering — 

96 




OUR HKRO MEETS TECUMSEH. "THIS IS A MAX! 



Our Hero Meets Tecumseh 

gleamed upon Brock. His dress, a hunting jacket of 
tanned deer-skin and close-fitting leggings. Fringed 
mocassins of the same material, richly embroidered in 
silk and porcupine quills dyed in divers colours, encased 
his feet. The light from the open log fire flickered fit- 
fully, half revealing the antlered heads of moose and 
caribou and other trophies of the chase that, hanging from 
the rafters, looked down upon the group, adding weirdness 
to the picture. 

Brock briefly explained that he had come to fight the 
King's enemies, enemies who so far had never seen his 
back, and who were Tecumseh's enemies also. " Would 
Tecumseh maintain an honourable warfare?" 

Perhaps no eulogy of Brock was ever penned that so 
well summed up his qualities as did the terse, four-worded 
certificate of character uttered by the Indian before reply- 
ing to the British general's appeal. Tecumseh looked 
" Master Isaac's " commanding physique up and over, 
over and down — Brock's caution as to waste of powder 
doubtless weighing with him — until eye met eye, and then, 
impulsively extending his thin brown hand, turned to his 
followers, exclaiming in tones of highest admiration: 

" This is a man !" 

Assenting " Ughs " and " Ho-hos " followed in rapid 
succession, and in response to Brock's invitation the head- 
men, painted and plumed and in striped blankets, squatted 
on their stained reed mats and wild-beast skins on the 
basswood log floor. Questioned as to the nature of the coun- 
try westward, Tecumseh took a roll of elm-bark and with 
the point of his scalping-knife traced on its white inner sur- 
face the features of the region — hills, forests, trails, rivers, 
1 97 



The Story of Isaac Brock 

muskegs and clearings. Rough, perhaps, but as accurate, 
he said, as if drawn by a pale-face teebahkee-wayninni 
(surveyor). 

That night, after Tecumseh's return, Brock again held 
council with his staff, proposing an attack on Detroit. 
Only one of his chief officers, the staunch colonial quarter- 
master, Lieutenant-Colonel ISTichol, agreed with him. 
Colonel Henry Procter, from whom he had expected 
whole-hearted support, strongly objected. History teaches 
us that the conception of a daring plan is the offspring 
of great minds only. Procter was not of this class, as 
his subsequent record shows. Some of Brock's critics 
have described his resolve to attack Detroit as " audacious 
and desperate." Isaac Brock was, of course, nothing if 
not contemptuously daring. The greater the difficulty 
that faced him the more was he determined to challenge 
the obstacle, that to a less confident man would have been 
rejected as insurmountable. He had, however, resolved 
and planned not only upon taking Detroit, but, if need 
be, the pursuit and capture of Hull's entire army, com- 
pelling him to either stand and fight or surrender. With 
habitual prescience he had weighed well the issues and 
chosen the lesser alternative. His own defeat and possibly 
his death, on the one hand, against the probable salvation 
of half a continent on the other. What true soldier could 
hesitate ? 

While patiently hearing objections, he brushed the most 
of them aside as mere flies on the wheel. Surely the way 
had been opened to him. The seized despatches had 
revealed the discord among Hull's troops and shown him 
that while the "United States militia, the flower of Ohio 

98 



Our Hero Meets Tecumseh 

and Kentucky, was of good material, the United States 
soldiers were not. He knew that the situation in Upper 
Canada called for extreme measures, and that the time 
to strike was now or never, for his scouts had truly 
reported that 350 United States mounted troops were 
pressing close upon his rear. They were, in fact, only a 
mile or two distant. If his own inferior force was out- 
flanked, or his communication with the Canadian interior 
cut, it spelled utter disaster. He was in a wilderness 
without hope of reinforcements. As Colonel Cass, the 
United States commander, later reported to the President, 
Brock was "between two fires and with no hope of 
succour." Brock knew he must act at once or even retreat 
might be impossible. With inborn acumen he saw at a 
glance the peril of his own position, and with cool courage 
hastened to avert it. He realized that upon the " destruc- 
tion or discomfiture " of Hull's forces " the safety of the 
province depended." 

Brock listened closely to Procter's argument — by this 
time he knew, of course, that Hull's own line of com- 
munication with his reserves had been cut — then rising, 
when all who cared to speak had finished, he said: 
" Gentlemen, I have definitely decided on crossing the 
river and attacking Fort Detroit. Instead of further 
advice I must beg of you to give me your hearty support. 
The general orders for to-morrow will be issued at once." 

This decision was typical of the man of action. " Pru- 
dent only where recklessness was a fault, and hazardous 
only when hesitation meant defeat." 



9d 



The Story of Isaac Brock 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

AN INDIAN POW-WOW. 

It was a picturesque council of white men and Indians 
that was held at dawn in an open glade of the forest. The 
fragrant odours of the bush mingled with the pungent 
smoke of the red willow-bark, puffed from a hundred 
pipes. Conspicuous at this pow-wow was Tecumseh, who 
across his close-fitting buckskin hunting jacket, which 
descended to his knees and was trimmed with split 
leather fringe, wore a belt of wampum, made of the 
purple enamel of mussel shells — cut into lengths like 
sections of a small pipe-stem, perforated and strung on 
sinew. On his head he wore a toque of eagle plumes. 

" My object," said Brock, addressing the Indians, " is 
to assist you to drive the ' Long-knives ' [Americans] from 
the frontier, and repel invasion of the King's country." 
Tecumseh, speaking for his tribesmen, remarked, not 
without sarcasm, that " their great father, King George, 
having awakened out of a long sleep, they were now ready 
to shed their last drop of blood in that father's service." 

" The pale faces," he continued, after an impressive 
pause — and the fire of his eloquence and his gestures 
swayed his hearers like the reeds on the river bank — 
"the Americans who want to fight the British are our 
enemies. . . . They came to us hungry and they cut 
off the hands of our brothers who gave then- corn. . . 
We gave them rivers of fish and they poisoned our foun- 

100 



An Indian Pow-wow 

tains. . . . We gave them forest-clad mountains and 
valleys full of game, and in return what did they give 
our warriors and our women ? Rum and trinkets and — 
a grave ! The shades of our fathers slaughtered 

on the banks of the Tippecanoe can find no rest. 
Their eyes can see no herds on the hills of light in the 
hunting grounds of the dead ! . . . Until our enemies 
are no more we must be as one man, imder one chief, 
whose name is — Death! ... I have spoken." 

Tecumseh, it should be known, bore a personal grudge 
against the Americans, especially against the 4th Regi- 
ment, then in garrison at Detroit, the " heroes of 
Tippecanoe." This was a terrible misnomer, for under 
General Harrison, with 1,000 soldiers, less than a 
year before, they had taken part in the slaughter of 
Tecumseh's half-armed band of 600 men and women on 
the banks of the Tippecanoe River, during that chief's 
absence with many of his warriors, and had laid waste 
his village. With a perhaps pardonable spirit of vindic- 
tiveness, such as is shared by both redskin and white man, 
the human-being in him thirsted for revenge. 

Brock, perceiving Tecumseh's sagacity and influence 
over the savages, invited the Shawanese and Wawanosh, 
Ojebekun and the other sachems, to a private council. 
Here he unfolded his plans. Before doing this he made 
it a condition that no barbarities were to be committed. 
" The scalping-knife," said he, " must be discarded, and 
forbearance, compassion and clemency shown to the van- 
quished." He told them he wanted to restrict their mili- 
tary operations to the known rules of war, as far as was 
possible under the singular conditions in which they 

101 



The Story of Isaac Brock 

i 

i 

fought, and exacted a promise from the lofty-minded 
Tecumseh that his warriors "should not taste perni- 
cious liquor until they had humbled the Big-knives." 
" If this resolution," remarked Brock, " is persevered in, 
you must surely conquer." 

Brock's rapid ascendency over the Indians was aston- 
ishing; they already revered him as a common father. 

That same afternoon our hero, moving up with his 
entire command to Sandwich, occupied the mansion of 
Colonel Baby, the great fur-trader, just evacuated by 
Hull. In the spacious hall hooks were nailed to the 
rafters, from which were suspended great steel-yards, 
by which the beaver packs were weighed. Scattered on 
the hewn floor in much profusion were soldiers' accoutre- 
ments, service and pack-saddles, iron-bound chests mixed 
up with bear-traps and paddles, rolls of birch-bark, leather 
hunting shirts, and the greasy blankets of voyageur and 
redskin. The room on the right became Brock's head- 
quarters, and in this room he penned his first demand upon 
General Hull. 

" My force," so he wrote, " warrants my demanding 
the immediate surrender of Fort Detroit." Anxious to 
prevent bloodshed, and knowing Hull's dread of the 
Indians, he also played upon his fears. " The Indians," 
he added, " might get beyond my control." This summons 
was carried by Colonel Macdonell and Major Glegg, under 
a flag of truce, across the river. 

The batteries at Sandwich consisted of one eighteen- 
pounder, two twelve-pounders, and two S^-inch howitzers. 
Back of these artificial breastworks extended both a wil- 
derness and the garden of Canada. Beyond the meadows, 

102 



An Indian Pow-wow 

aflame with autumn wild-flowers, beyond the cultivated 
clearings, rose a forest of walnut, oak, basswood, birch and 
poplar trees, seared with age, of immense height and girth, 
festooned with wild honeysuckle and other creepers. In 
the open were broad orchards bending under their harvest 
of red and yellow fruit — apples and plums, peaches, 
nectarines and cherries — and extensive vineyards. Huge 
sugar maples challenged giant pear trees, whose gnarled 
trunks had resisted the storms of a century. To the north 
the floor of the forest was interlaced with trails, which, 
with the intention of deceiving Hull's spies as to the 
strength of Brock's forces, had been crossed and recrossed, 
and countermarched and doubled over, by the soldiers 
and Tecumseh's half-naked braves. 

The air was filled with the fragrance of orchard and 
forest. Facing our hero, flowed the river, broad, swift 
and deep ; tufted wolf -willow, waving rushes and gray 
hazel fringing the banks. Across and beyond this almost 
mile-wide ribbon of water, the imposing walls of Fort 
Detroit confronted him. Approaching him at a rapid 
gait he at last espied his two despatch bearers, their scarlet 
tunics vivid against the green background. They reported 
that, after waiting upon Hull for two hours without being 
granted an interview, they were handed the following 
reply : 

" General Hull is prepared to meet any force brought 
against him, and accept any consequences." 

Brock instructed his gunners to acknowledge the receipt 
of this challenge with the thunder of their batteries, and 
from then, far into the night, shells and round-shot shrieked 
their way across the river, the answering missiles from 

103 



The Story of Isaac Brock 

Hull's seven twenty-four-pounders breaking in a sheet of 
flame from the very dust created by the British cannon- 
balls that exploded on the enemy's breastworks. Through 
the irony of fate, the first shot fired under Brock's per- 
sonal orders in the cause of Canadian freedom killed a 
United States officer, an intimate friend of the British 
artilleryman who had trained the gun. Such are the 
arguments of war. 

The cannonade proving ineffective, as judged by visible 
results, Brock issued orders to cross the river at dawn, 
when he would make the attempt to take the fort by storm 
— and soldier and militiaman bivouacked on their arms. 



Camp fires were extinguished, but the tireless fireflies 
danced in the blackness of the wood. The river gurgled 
faintly in the wind-stirred reeds. From out the gloom 
of the thicket came the weird coco-coco of the horned owl. 
From the starlit sky above fell the shrill cry of the 
mosquito hawk, " peepeegeeceese, peepeegeeceese !" From 
an isolated bark tepee came the subdued incantation of the 
Indian medicine-man, while above the singing of the tree- 
tops and over all, clear and with clock-like regularity, 
floated the challenge of the sentry and answering picket: 

" Who goes there ?" 

" A friend." 

" All's well." 



104 



The Attack on Detroit 



CHAPTER XIX. 

THE ATTACK ON DETROIT. 

Moening came all too slowly for Brock's impatient 
soldiers. At last the reveille warned the expectant camp. 
The sun rose, a red-hot shell out of the faint August haze, 
huge and threatening. With its advent the British bat- 
teries resumed their fire, aided by the guns on the Queen 
Charlotte and Hunter, which lay in the river, above the 
village known to-day as Windsor, to cover the embarkation 
of the troops in batteaux and canoes. 

Brock's entire force consisted of only 330 regulars and 
400 militia, some of whom, acting on a happy thought, 
were disguised in discarded uniforms of the 41st. This 
army was supported by five pieces of artillery. All 
crossed the river in safety, landing at Spring Wells, four 
miles below. The Indians, 600 strong, under Tecumseh, 
in addition to the men of his own nation, consisted of 
many Sioux, Wyandottes and Dacotahs. The majority 
of these crossed under cover of the night. History records 
no instance of a determined force being stopped by a 
river. The Detroit River presented an animated picture. 
Edging their way through a maze of boats and batteaux, 
and in marked contrast to the scarlet-coated soldiers and 
blue-shirted sailors, bark canoes on which were drawn in 
flaring colours a variety of barbaric designs, flitted here 
and there, their crews of half-naked savages fearsome in 
fresh war-paint and gaudy feathers. Coo-ees, shrieks and 

105 



The Story of Isaac Brock] 

shrill war-whoops — " Ah-oh! Ah-oo!" like the dismal yells 
of a pack of coyotes — rent the air, the discordant din ever 
and anon drowned by the thunder of the guns from the 
Sandwich batteries. 

Upon landing Brock mustered his men. The reports 
showed 750 of all ranks, including the voyageurs left in 
charge of the river squadron. The 600 Indians deployed 
in the shelter of the woods, skirmishing to effect a flank 
movement. The column, having formed, was moved for- 
ward in sections, and at double distance, to lend a fictitious 
air of strength; the light artillery, of three six, and two 
three-pounders, being immediately in rear of the advance 
guards, the whole preceded by fluttering standards and 
rolling drums. Three generations ago! Yet you can see 
it all to-day as plainly as Brock saw it, if you but close 
your eyes and conjure up the past. 

The enemy, over 2,000 strong, drawn up in line upon 
an overlooking rise, had planted in the roadway, com- 
manding the approach to the town, two twenty-four 
pounders, each loaded with six dozen grapeshot, around 
which the gunners stood with burning fuses, challenging 
our hero's advance. 

Up and down, in front of the line, rode Isaac Brock 
on his gray charger, his brilliant uniform — khaki was 
unknown in those days — flashing in the morning sun, a 
shining mark. A command here, a kindly rebuke there, 
a word of encouragement to all ranks ; the eyes of Britain 
and Canada were upon them; they might have to take 
the fort by storm, — even so, honour and glory awaited 
them. . . . Forward then, for King and country! 

The rat-a-tat-tat of the kettle-drums, the clear-cut 

106 



The Attack on Detroit 

whistle of the fifes, the resonant roll of the big drums, the 
steady tramp, tramp of armed men — and the human 
machine was in motion. 



The long grim guns on Fort Detroit and Hull's field- 
pieces pointed their black muzzles at the column. Up 
and down, in front of his men, rode Isaac Brock. 



Now this was more than some flesh and blood could 
stand. Spurring his horse, acting Quartermaster-General 
Nichol reined up alongside his beloved commander. 
" General," he said, saluting his leader, while the sol- 
diers' faces expressed dumb approval, " forgive me, but 
I cannot forbear entreating you not to expose yourself. 
If we lose you, we lose all. I pray you, allow the troops 
to advance, led by their own officers." 

" Master Nichol," said Brock, turning in his saddle 
and returning the salute of the gallant Quartermaster, 
" I fully appreciate your kindly advice, but I feel that, 
in addition to their sense of loyalty and duty, there are 
many here following me from a feeling of personal regard, 
and I will never ask them to go where I do not lead." 

Before him spread the plain, broken here and there 
with coulees and clumps of bush. A partly fenced road- 
way, with some scattered houses on the river bank, but 
no barbed-wire entanglements, impeded his movements. 
The introduction of such pleasant devices was left for a 
higher civilization ! 



107 



The Story of Isaac Brock 

The column was in motion. The steady onward tramp, 
tramp of this thin red line, raw recruit and grizzly veteran 
shoulder to shoulder, struck fear into the heart of the 
unfortunate Hull. The prospect, though his troops out- 
numbered the British three to one, was clearly war to the 
knife. Brock's meaning was apparent. Should he or 
should he not accept the Englishman's challenge? He 
could extract no comfort out of that solid scarlet front, 
bristling with naked steel, now fast approaching in battle 
array with even, ominous tread. 



The siege-proof walls of the fort lay behind him. His 
irresolute heart grew faint, and in the flash of a flint- 
lock in its pan, honour was sacrificed and fame cast to the 
winds. A brave army of martyrs, over 2,000 strong, was 
rightabout faced, and drinking the cup of humiliation, 
that only men of courage can drain to the bitter dregs, 
this army, eager to lock bayonets with the British, was 
actually ordered to retreat into the shelter of Fort Detroit ! 



108 




rM.II M. ,-v. ■'.■; M.l ' , I, K.I \'c II ilti.l 

Lieutenant-Colonel John Macdonell. 

..l Ud-de Camp lo Major-General sir Isaac Brock ; M.l'. for Glengar 
a da 



Brock's Victory 

CHAPTER XX. 

BROCK'S VICTORY. 

Reaching a ravine, Brock ordered up his artillery and 
prepared to assault. A shell from the British battery at 
Sandwich roared over the river and crashed through an 
embrasure of Fort Shelby, killing four American officers. 
The Savoyard river was reached and the outlying tan-yard 
crossed. Brock's troops, keyed up, with nerves tense under 
the strain of suspense, and every moment expecting a 
raking discharge of shot and shell from the enemy's big 
guns, heard with grim satisfaction the General's orders to 
" prepare for assault." 

The field-pieces were trained upon the fort, to cover 
the rush of the besiegers. The gunners, with bated breath 
and burning fuses, awaited the final command, when lo! 
an officer bearing a white flag emerged from the fort, 
while a boat with another flag of truce was seen crossing 
the river to the Sandwich battery. Macdonell and Glegg 
galloped out to meet the messenger. They returned with 
a despatch from the American general, Hull, to the 
British general, Brock. This was the message: 

" The object of the flag which crossed the river was 
to propose a cessation of hostilities for an hour, for the 
purpose of entering into negotiations for the surrender 
of Detroit." 

An hour later the British troops, with General Isaac 

109 



The Story of Isaac Brock 

Brock at their head, marched through the smiling fields 
and orchards, passed over the fort draw-bridge, and, sur- 
rounded by a host of fierce-looking and indignant militia 
of Ohio and " the heroes of Tippecanoe," hauled down 
the Stars and Stripes — which had waved undisturbed over 
Fort Lernoult since its voluntary evacuation by the British 
in 1796 — and, in default of a British ensign, hoisted a 
Union Jack — which a sailor had worn as a body-belt — 
over the surrendered fortress. British sentinels now 
guarded the ramparts. The bells of old St. Anne's saluted 
the colors. The " Grand Army of the West," by which 
pretentious title Hull had seen fit to describe his invading 
force, melted like mist before the rising sun. 

Several unattached Canadians, costumed as redmen, 
followed Brock inside the fort, and, baring their white 
arms for Hull's especial edification, declared they had so 
disguised themselves in order to show their contempt for 
his cruel threat respecting instant death to " Indians 
found fighting." 

The terms of capitulation included not only one general 
officer and 2,500 men of all ranks — the would-be con- 
querors of Canada — 2,500 stand of arms, 33 pieces of 
cannon, the Adams brig of war, and immense quantities 
of stores and munitions, valued at £40,000 — but Fort 
Shelby and the town of Detroit and 59,700 square miles 
of United States territory. ISTor were these all, for the 
fort standard — to the wild delight of Tecumseh's warriors 
— a highly-prized trophy, it being the "colours" of the 
4th United States regiment, the vaunted " heroes of Tippe- 
canoe," passed into the keeping of the British. 

Canada was saved ! 

110 



Brock's Victory 

It was then that those officers who strongly opposed 
Brock's determination to attack became suddenly wise 
after the event and eager to share the honour. The temp- 
tation to improve the opportunity, to any man less strong 
than our hero, would have been irresistible, but there was 
no display of vainglory, no cheap boasting. The sword of 
the conquered American general was accepted with manly 
deference and the consideration due to his rank, and he 
was told, without solicitation on his part, he could return 
to the United States on parole. Then Brock hurriedly 
dictated a brief and modest despatch apprising Sir George 
Prevost of the " capture of this very important post," and 
quite realizing that he was merely an instrument in the 
hands of Providence, and gratitude and the happiness of 
those he held most dear being uppermost in his mind, the 
captor of Detroit wrote this characteristic letter. 

" Headquarters, Detroit, 
"August 16, 1812. 
" My dear Brothers and Friends, — Rejoice at my good 
fortune and join me in prayers to heaven. I send you a 
copy of my hasty note to Sir George. Let me know that 
you are all united and happy. 

" Isaac." 

And so it came about that in this strange and noble 
fashion General Brock — " Master Isaac of St. Peter's 
Port " — overcame the enemy in the wilds of Michigan 
and passed his fourth milestone. 



Ill 



The Story of Isaac Brock 



CHAPTER XXI. 

CHAGRIN IN THE UNITED STATES. 

The conduct of the Indians under Tecumseh at Detroit 
had been marked by great heroism and strict adherence 
to their pledges. " The instant the enemy submitted, his 
life became sacred." In recognition of Tecumseh's work, 
and in the presence of the troops formed in the fort square, 
Brock handed him his silver-mounted pistols, and taking 
off his sash, tied it round the body of the chief. 

A suspicion of a smile — the faint smile of elation of the 
well-trained child accepting a prize — flitted across the 
Indian's finely chiselled face as, proudly inclining his 
head, he silently took the crimson band. Then unwinding 
his own parti-colored, closely-woven Red River belt, 
''Would the great white shemogonis (warrior)," he whis- 
pered, " accept the simple sash of the Shawanese in 
return ?" 

To this there was a sequel. The next day, when he bade 
Brock farewell, Tecumseh wore no sash. "Roundhead," 
he explained, " was an older, an abler warrior than him- 
self. While he was present he could not think of wearing 
such a badge of distinction." He had given the sash to 
the Wyandotte chieftain. Tecumseh proved himself a 
greater diplomat than Hull. 

The papers of surrender signed, Brock hastened to 
liberate Dean, a soldier of the 41st, wounded and taken 
prisoner at the Canard river, with another man, while 

112 



Chagrin in the United States 

gallantly defending the bridge against a large body of 
the enemy. In a voice broken with emotion Brock told 
him that he had " nobly upheld the traditions of the ser- 
vice and was an honour to his profession." Then he 
singled out Lieutenant Roulette, of the sloop Hunter, a 
French Canadian, who captured eighteen prizes during 
the war and was the leading spirit in many gallant events. 
" I watched you during the action," said the General. 
" You behaved like a lion. I will remember you." In 
the orders of that afternoon Brock praised the conduct 
of his troops. He laid stress upon the " discipline and 
determination that had decided an enemy, infinitely more 
numerous in men and artillery, and protected by a strong 
fortification, to propose capitulation." 

The effect of the news in Upper Canada was electrical. 
Brock became the idol of the people and was acclaimed 
" hero and saviour of Upper Canada." His performance 
was a record one. In nineteen days he had met the Legis- 
lature, settled important public business, transported a 
small army 300 miles, 200 of which was by open boat in 
stormy waters, compelled the surrender of an enemy three 
times his strength, entrenched in a protected fort, and 
seized 60,000 square miles of United States mainland and 
islands. 

To the American people the news came as a thunder- 
clap. President Madison's chagrin was indescribable. 
After all the insulting remarks and bombastic prophecies 
of himself and Clay, Calhoun, Eustis and others, the 
humiliation was as gall and wormwood. Clay, the apos- 
tate, later on swallowed his words and signed the treaty 
of peace. Eustis, the Secretary of War, had boasted that 
8 113 



The Story of Isaac Brock 

he would " take the whole country and ask no favours, for 
God has given us the power and the means." But God 
saw fit to confound the despoiler. Hull was, of course, 
made a scapegoat. Tried by court-martial, he was found 
guilty of cowardice and neglect, and sentenced to death, 
but pardoned by the President. His son died fighting at 
Lundy's Lane. The officers of Hull's command, who 
were almost united in opposing surrender, as brave men 
felt their position keenly. Never let us forget that no 
one race holds a monopoly in courage, that no nation has 
exclusive control of the spirit of patriotism. Fortunate 
it is indeed for most of us that the loftier qualities of man 
can not be copyrighted by the individual. A share of these 
has been bestowed in wise proportion upon all members 
of the human family. To those who seek to emulate the 
character and deeds of the world's famous men, certain 
essential qualities of mind may even be acquired and 
developed by all, but to possess the " fullness of perfec- 
tion" cannot be the lot of every man. 

Having finished " the business " that took him to 
Detroit, our hero did not waste an hour. Leaving Procter 
in command, he started before morning of the next day 
for Fort George, anxious to carry out his plans and 
assume the offensive on the Niagara frontier. 

He embarked in the Chippeiva, a small trading schooner, 
with seventy of the Ohio Rifles as prisoners, and took, as 
a guard, a rifle company commanded by his young friend, 
Captain Robinson, subsequently Chief Justice Robinson, 
" again winning golden opinions from the men by his 
urbanity." 

On Lake Erie he met the Lady Prevost, of fourteen 

114 



Chagrin in the United States 

guns, the commander of which, after saluting the hero 
of Detroit with seventeen guns, boarded the Chippewa, 
handing him despatches that notified him of an armistice, 
which Sir George Prevost had actually concluded with the 
American general, Dearborn, on August 9th! Brock's 
mortification was profound. His cherished plan, to sweep 
the Niagara frontier and destroy the United States naval 
arsenal at Sackett's Harbour, was again frustrated. 

A diversion occurred that morning which for a time 
drove the unpardonable armistice from Brock's thoughts. 
A heavy mist hung over the water. It hid the shore. 
Deceived by this, the skipper of the Chippewa, who 
thought he was in Fort Erie harbour, discovered, as the 
fog lifted, that they were on the American side and close 
to Buffalo. The situation was perilous and dramatic. 
With the melting of the haze the wind dropped. Brock 
saw on the Buffalo shore, within easy hail, a concourse of 
inquisitive people trying to make out the nationality of 
his ship. Believing the skipper was in league with the 
enemy, Brock turned upon him savagely. 

" You scoundrel," said he, " you have betrayed me. 
Let but one shot be fired and I will run you up at the 
yard-arm." Fortunately, the Queen Charlotte, in Cana- 
dian water, was seen and signalled, and, the wind rising, 
she convoyed the Chippewa and her precious passenger 
into safety. 

The news of the armistice dumbfounded the General. 
Instead of battering Fort Niagara and attacking Sackett's 
Harbour, he had to order Procter to cancel the expedition 
for the relief of Fort Wayne, in the Wabash country, and 
himself hurry on to Fort George. At Chippewa he was 

115 



The Story of Isaac Brock 

received with wild welcome by the river residents and the 
populace from the countryside. A deputation of prominent 
men met him at Queenston, placed him in an open carriage, 
and with martial music he was escorted in triumph to Fort 
George. After receiving at Niagara the congratulations 
of the lady to whom he was engaged, Brock took schooner 
for York and Kingston. At both of these places fervid 
demonstrations were showered upon him. But " Master 
Isaac's " head could not be turned either by success or 
adulation. The old spirit of self-effacement asserted 
itself. " The gallant band of brave men," he said, " at 
whose head I marched against the enemy, are the proper 
objects of your gratitude. The services of the militia 
have been duly appreciated and will never be forgotten." 

Isaac's modesty again served to increase the homage and 
profound devotion of the people. 

Justice Powell voiced the views of the citizens of Upper 
Canada when he declared Brock could " boast of the most 
brilliant success, with the most inadequate means, which 
history records. ... It was something fabulous that 
a handful of troops, supported by a few raw militia, could 
invade the country of an enemy of doubtful numbers, in 
his own fortress, and make all prisoners without the loss 
of a man." 

" If this sort of thing lasts," commented our hero to 
a friend, " I am afraid I shall do some foolish thing, for 
if I know myself there is no want of what is called courage 
in my nature, and I can only hope I shall not be led into 
some scrape." 



116 




QUEENSTON HEIGHTS AND BROCK'S MONUMENT. 
(Original painting by C. M. Manly, A.R.C.A.) 



Prevost's Armistice 



CHAPTER XXII. 

PREVOST'S ARMISTICE: 

The armistice paralyzed Brock's movements. All the 
moral influence and material advantage gained by the 
captures of Mackinaw and Detroit were nullified by this 
incredible blunder, for which no reason, military or civil, 
has ever been assigned. The loyal volunteers were released 
from duty. Brock's Indian allies returned to their villages. 
Prevost's policy of peace had become a mental malady. 
In spite of our hero's pleadings, and though Prevost actu- 
ally knew, before the fall of Detroit, that President 
Madison would not extend the two weeks' armistice, the 
Governor-General forbade Brock attacking either Sackett's 
Harbour, the key to United States supremacy on the lakes, 
or Port Niagara. 

" War," wrote Prevost, " has never yet been declared by 
England. Peace is possible." 

Brock, smarting under restraint and handcuffed by red 
tape, was compelled to look on while the enemy brought 
up reinforcements, powder, shot, provisions and other 
munitions of war, by water to Lewiston. General Van 
Kensselaer, in command of the American forces at Lewis- 
ton, wrote to the President stating that by " keeping up 
a bold front he had succeeded in getting from General 
Sheaffe at Fort George the uninterrupted use of the lakes 
and rivers." The strategic advantage to the enemy of 
this cessation of hostilities and the privileges conceded 

117 



The Story of Isaac Brock 

was enormous. Prevost realized his error too late. The 
following year, conceiving it then to be his special mis- 
sion to borrow our dead hero's policy, he attacked 
Sackett's Harbour, but his " cautious calculation " was, 
of course, rewarded by ignoble defeat, and ultimately, 
after the Plattsburg fiasco, by a court-martial. In his 
civil administration of Canada Sir George Prevost may 
have been a success ; as a soldier he was a sad failure. 

Isaac was daily proving the truth of the precept, recog- 
nized by all men sooner or later, that life's values lie not 
so much in its victories as in its strife. 

Though Brock awoke after Detroit to find himself 
famous, and a hero whose prowess far exceeded that of 
his ancestor, the Jurat of the Royal Court of Guernsey, 
over whose exploits he used to ponder seated on the Lion's 
Rock at Cobo, he was still the same " Master Isaac," still 
the " beloved brother." Separation from his kinsmen 
only served to draw him closer. 

Crossing Lake Ontario gave him the opportunity he 
longed for. He wrote to his brothers collectively, telling 
them the sundry details of his success, " which was beyond 
his expectation." He hoped the affair would meet with 
recognition at the War Office. Though admitting it was 
a desperate measure, he told them " it proceeded from a 
cool calculation of the pros and cons," and as Colonel 
Procter had opposed it, he was not surprised that envy 
now induced that officer " to attribute to good fortune 
what in reality was the result of my own knowledge and 
discernment." But praise and honours, though sweet to 
Brock, who after all was only mortal, were secondary 
to the fact that he would be in a position to contribute 

118 



Prevost's Armistice 

something to the comfort and happiness of his brothers. 
The value of the " treasure " captured at Detroit was 
placed at £40,000. Brock's share of this was a substantial 
sum. 

" When I returned heaven thanks," he wrote, " for 
my amazing success, I thought of you all, your late sor- 
rows forgotten, and I felt that the many benefits which 
for a series of years I received from you were not 
unworthily bestowed." But the hope that they were 
reunited was always the dominant note. " Let me know, 
my dearest brothers," he pleaded, " that you are all again 
united." Then, out of his own knowledge, wrought of 
deep experience in the world's wide field, he proceeded: 
" The want of union was nearly losing this province, with- 
out even a struggle ; rest assured, it operates in the same 
degree in regard to families." 

Brock's despatches, with the story of the capture of 
Detroit and the colours of the 4th Regiment, United States 
Army, the oriflamme of the " heroes of Tippecanoe," 
reached London the morning of October 6th, the anni- 
versary of his birth. His brother William resided close 
to the city. A tumultuous clangour of bells and booming 
of guns from St. James' Park and the Tower of London 
rent the air. When asked by his wife the reason for the 
jubilation he jokingly replied, " Why, for Isaac, of course. 
You surely have not forgotten this is his birthday." But 
William, on reaching the city, learned to his amazement 
that his jesting words were true. The salvoes of artillery 
and peals of bells were indeed in honour of General 
Brock's victory in far-off Michigan. 

Neither King nor Imperial Government was slow to 

119 



The Story of Isaac Brock 

recognize our hero's achievements. The Prince Regent, 
who expressed his appreciation of Brock's " able, judi- 
cious and decisive conduct," bestowed upon him an extra 
knighthood of the Order of the Bath, in consideration, so 
ran the document, " of all the difficulties with which he 
was surrounded during the invasion of the Province, and 
the singular judgment, firmness, skill and courage with 
which he surmounted them so effectually." 

When the glittering insignia of his new rank reached 
Canada, Sir Isaac Brock's eyes were closed in death. His 
inanimate body, from which one of the noblest souls of 
the century had fled, lay rigid in its winding-sheet at 
Fort George. 

To Major Glegg, who bore the General's despatches 
from Canada, the Prince Regent remarked that " General 
Brock had done more in an hour than could have been 
done in six months by negotiation." The fulfilment of 
Isaac's favourite maxim, " Say and do," was being 
demonstrated in a most remarkable manner. 



120 




MAJOR-GENERAL BROCK, 18x6." 

(From miniature painting by J. Hudson.) 
Copyrighted in the U. S. A. and Canada. 



"Hero, Defender, Saviour " 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

"HERO, DEFENDER, SAVIOUR." 

General Sheaffe, the only field officer available, and 
junior colonel of the 49th, of whom the reader has already 
heard, had been brought from the East to take command 
at Niagara in Brock's absence. Like Prevost, he was born 
in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1763, a son of the deputy 
collector of that port. There the two had been school- 
fellows, and both found it difficult to engage in vigorous 
diplomatic or military conflict with the United States. 
To Sheaffe's credit it should be said that he applied for 
another station. 

It was Sheaffe, however, who acceded to General Dear- 
born's specious demand that the freedom of the lakes and 
rivers be extended to the United States Government dur- 
ing the armistice. This was done while Brock was in 
the West. Sheaffe it also was who, with hat in hand and 
strange alacrity, later agreed, despite his first terrible 
blunder, to repeat the offence. On the very afternoon 
that the British defeated Van Rensselaer at Queenston, 
and when the moral effect of that victory, followed up by 
vigorous attack, would have saved Canada from a con- 
tinuance of the war, and deplorable loss of life and trade, 
Sheaffe actually agreed to another armistice. For this 
second truce, like his first, "no valid reason, military or 
civil, has ever been assigned." As far as the British were 
concerned, neither of these two was necessary, but, on the 

121 



The Story of Isaac Brock 

contrary, directly to their disadvantage. Isaac Brock, 
alas ! was not made in duplicate. 

Our hero remained but a few hours in Kingston. He 
was needed in Niagara. The enemy was burning to 
avenge Detroit. The sight of Hull's ragged legions 
passing as prisoners of war along the Canadian bank 
of the river, bound for Montreal, did not tend to soften 
the hearts of the Americans. Stores and ordnance con- 
tinued to pour into Lewiston. Brock needed 1,000 
additional regulars. He might as well have asked for 
the moon. Early in September he stated that if he could 
maintain his position six weeks longer " the campaign 
would end in a manner little expected in the States." 
Scores of American marines and seamen were marking 
time, waiting for the launching of the vessels which 
Captain Chauncey had been given free license to build 
to ensure United States supremacy of the lakes. Prevost's 
eyes were still bandaged. Brock warned his grenadiers 
of the 49th to be ready for trouble. He foresaw that the 
Niagara river would be crossed, but at what point was 
uncertain. Stray musket-balls whistled across at night 
as thick as whip-poor-wills in summer. This firing was 
" the unauthorized warfare between sentinels." The 
peaceful citizens of Newark, returning from dance or card- 
party — even the imminence of war did not wholly stifle 
their desire for innocent revelry — found it embarrassing. 

Though Van Rensselaer's force now numbered 6,300 
men, he was still afraid to attack Brock. Invited by the 
United States Government to take up arms, 400 Seneca 
Indians " went upon the war-path," and performed ghost- 
dances on the streets of Lewiston. Prevost, with no pro- 

122 



"Hero, Defender, Saviour " 

per conception of the doctrine of " what we have we hold," 
ordered Brock to " evacuate Detroit and the territory of 
Michigan." To " the man behind the gun," who had but 
just donated this 60,000 square miles of realty to the 
Empire, such instructions were hardly to his taste. Armed 
with powers of discretion, Brock declined. Meanwhile 
his heart was sore. The situation was galling. If 
there was to be no more fighting, why should he not get 
his release, join Wellington in Portugal, and renounce 
Canada? Unrest and vigilance best describe the order 
of his days, while waiting attack. The death of the ever- 
attentive Dobson, who had passed away before Brock's 
departure for Detroit, and the absence of the faithful 
sergeant-major — now Adjutant FitzGibbon — distressed 
him. In an attempt by General Brown to capture some 
British batteaux at Tousaint Island, on the St. Lawrence, 
the Americans had been repulsed by Brock's gallant 
protege. 

Everything now pointed to an early attack by the 
enemy in force. General Van Rensselaer, with an ascer- 
tained army of at least 6,300, of which 2,600 were militia, 
wrote that he " would cross the river in the rear of Fort 
George, take it by storm, carry the Heights of Queenston, 
destroy the British ships — the Prince, Regent and Earl 
Moira — at the mouth of the river, leave Brock no rallying 
point, appal the minds of the Canadians, and wipe away 
the past disgrace." 

On one of his visits to Fort George he had remarked to 
Brock, who had laughingly pointed out two beautiful 
brass howitzers taken from General Wayne, " Oh, yes, 
they are old friends of mine; I must take them back." 

123 



The Story of Isaac Brock 

They were not taken back in Brock's time. Even with 
his grand army of 6,300, his 400 Seneca braves, and his 
written admission that Niagara was weakly garrisoned, 
it is certain Van Rensselaer would have still delayed 
attack, unless he had been told by his spies that Brock 
had returned to Detroit. Then, with valour oozing from 
his finger tips, he plucked up courage to attack the lair 
in the lion's absence. 

At this juncture an untoward event occurred, in the 
re-taking by the Americans of the brig Detroit, formerly 
the United States brig Adams — captured, as we know, by 
Roulette — and the trading brig Caledonia. They were 
at anchor at the head of the Niagara River, off Black 
Rock. The irregular regiments of Hull's command, under 
the terms of surrender, were on board on their way to 
their Ohio homes, via Lake Erie and Buffalo. The two 
vessels reached Fort Erie harbour safely, and being 
rightly regarded by the British as immune from attack, 
were left undefended, in charge of an officer and nine 
men only, most of whom were voyageurs. In addition 
to the prisoners, the two brigs carried great quantities of 
fur and 600 packs of deer skins. During darkness Lieu- 
tenant Ellis, with three armed boats and 150 United 
States troops and sailors, dropped alongside. Roulette 
and his nine men fought desperately, one being killed 
and four wounded, but both vessels, of course, fell into 
the enemy's hands. This attack was contrary to the rules 
of war, and a violation of the sanctity of the flag which 
" continued to float as long as there were American pris- 
oners on board, awaiting to be landed on United States 
soil." 

124 



"Hero, Defender, Saviour" 

Brock regarded this loss as a calamity. It was, he 
wrote to Prevost, " likely to reduce him to great distress." 
His constant fears that the enemy would secure control 
of both Lakes Erie and Ontario were well founded. He 
begged Prevost to let him destroy the vessels Chauncey, the 
American, was building on Squaw Island. Prevost, of 
course, besought him to forbear. Isaac Brock, exasperated 
and with tied hands, was " doomed to the bitterest of all 
griefs, to see clearly and yet be able to do nothing." Yet 
while he worked in chains his preparedness was a source 
of wonder to those behind the scenes. 

Even no less a critic than John Lovett, General Van 
Rensselaer's military secretary, was impressed with what 
he saw through his field-glasses from Lewiston heights. 
" Every three or four miles, on every eminence," he wrote 
a friend, " Brock has erected a snug battery, the last 
saucy argument of kings, poking their white noses and 
round black nostrils right upon your face, ready to spit 
fire and brimstone in your very teeth, if you were to offer 
to turn squatter on John Bull's land." Influenced by 
these signs of " business," the United States officers were 
ordered to " dress as much like their men as possible, so 
that at 150 yards they might not be recognized." This 
was probably due to one of the last orders issued by our 
hero, who warned his men that, when the enemy crossed 
the river, to withhold their musketry fire until he was 
well within range, and then, " if he lands, attack him at 
the point of the bayonet with determined resolution." 

With clairvoyance that would have done credit to a 
mind-reader, Brock knew that attack was imminent. To 
him the wind that blew across the river October 12th was 

125 



The Story of Isaac Brock 

laden with omens of war. The air seemed charged with 
the acrid smell of burnt powder. The muffled beat of 
drums, the smothered boom of artillery, the subdued clash 
of steel meeting steel, the stealthy tramp of armed men, 
seemed to encompass him. 



Brock was at his headquarters. He gazed from the 
window. The storm outside was hurling great splashes of 
rain against the narrow casement. To and fro, over the 
carpeted floor, he paced that evening for an hour or more, 
uninterrupted and alone. It was thus he marshalled facts 
and weighed conclusions. Powerful brain and vigorous 
frame acted in concert. He was enjoying the fulfilment 
of the promise of his youth. God had been good. The 
world had been tolerant; his fellow-men — at least those 
who knew the real Isaac — loyally appreciative. The 
knowledge of his honours and fame stirred him to his 
soul. Not that he was any better, or abler, he meditated, 
than other men, but that when " opportunity " offered he 
was permitted to grasp it. 

" For every day I stand outside your door, 
And bid you wake and rise to fight and win." 

The influence of the great truth as pronounced in the 
now familiar couplet inspired him. He recognized the 
source whence he derived whatever of success had fol- 
lowed his efforts, and prayed for greater sagacity, more 
vigour of body and tenacity of purpose, a complete sur- 
render of self to the task before him ; that if his life was 



126 



" Hero, Defender, Saviour " 

to be the price of duty, he might place it on the altar of 
his country without one shred of compunction. 



He rang the bell for Porter — his body-servant since 
Dobson's death — directed him to see that the council 
room was lighted, that pens, ink, paper and cigars were 
in place, as a meeting of his staff was slated for nine, 
and sought his sanctum. 



127 



The Story of Isaac Brock 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

BROCK'S LAST COUNCIL. 

It was long past midnight on the morning of Tuesday, 
October 13th, 1812, when Brock dismissed his advisory 
council of staff officers. An animated discussion had 
taken place over the strength of the enemy and the spot 
he might select to cross the river, for ruses had been 
resorted to by Van Rensselaer to deceive the British. 

" I dare not, gentlemen," said our hero, in opening 
the debate, " weaken my flanks at Niagara and Erie, 
though I realize I am leaving Queenston not properly 
protected. I have just learned that General Dearborn 
states that while ' Tippecanoe ' Harrison invades Canada, 
at Detroit, with 7,000 men — I do not think it necessary 
I should point out Detroit on the map," he added with a 
smile — " and while a United States squadron — not a Brit- 
ish one, mark you — sweeps Lake Ontario from Sackett's 
Harbour, Dearborn himself will threaten Montreal from 
Lake Champlain. While the east and the west are thus 
being annexed by the enemy, our friend Van Rensselaer 
is to entertain us here. 

" An ordinary boat, as we all know, can be rowed across 
the river at Queenston in less than ten minutes. Our 
spies have reported that forty batteaux, to carry forty 
men each, are in readiness at Tonawanda. Evans and 
Macdonell, when they called on Van Rensselaer, saw at 
least a dozen boats moored at Lewiston, some of which 

12S 




< 
< 



Brock's Last Council 

could carry eighty men. During the deplorable armis- 
tice, as General Sheaffe is aware " — looking at that officer 
— " Van Rensselaer brought up 400 boats and batteaux 
from Ogdensburg and other points, all of his previously 
blockaded fleet, so the enemy has no lack of transport. 
The most effective disposition of our limited force is, I 
admit, somewhat of a problem. There is no use in evad- 
ing the fact that in point of numbers and ordnance we 
are too weak, and as Sir George Prevost has written me 
not to expect any further aid, Colonel Talbot must send 
us a few of his militia." 

" Macdonell," he said, turning to his aide, " will you 
write at once, to-night, to Colonel Talbot, at Port Talbot, 
stating that I am strongly induced to believe I will soon 
be attacked, and tell him that I wish him to send 200 
men, the militia under his command, without delay, by 
water to Port Erie." 

This was Brock's last official letter dictated in council. 

" General Sheaffe," he said, addressing that officer, 
" you, perhaps, know better than any of us the particulars 
of Van Rensselaer's appointment. It seems that he is 
an amateur soldier, pitchforked into command against 
his own will, a victim of New York State politics. While 
this is probably so, we must not run away with the idea 
that his other officers are no better, for, besides Generals 
Dearborn and Wadsworth — both soldiers of national 
repute — his cousin, Colonel Solomon Van Rensselaer, his 
chief of staff, is a first-class soldier, a proved fighting 
man. The latter is reported to be at the head of 750 
well-trained militia, 300 of whom are selected soldiers, 
and fifty are said to know every inch of the river. Our 
9 129 



The Story of Isaac Brock 

spies report the enemy could ferry 1,500 regulars across 
in seven trips. 

" The safety of our redan on the Heights has given me 
some concern, but Dennis, Williams and others report 
that the height is inaccessible from the river side. If 
an attack in force is made at Queenston, we will have 
to concentrate every available man there — at the risk of 
weakening our flanks. Lewiston, as you have seen, is 
white with tents. At Fort Gray the enemy has two 
twenty-four-pounders, waiting to silence our eighteen- 
pounder in the redan. The Americans have several mortars 
and six-pounders on the river bank below Lewiston, ready 
to ship to any point by boats specially equipped, or to cover 
the landing of their troops on our side of the river, and 
to drive us back if we attempt to dispute their passage." 

In district general orders prepared that night, the last 
official document signed by General Sir Isaac Brock, he 
directed, " in view of the imminence of hostilities, that 
no further communication be held with the enemy by flag 
of truce, or otherwise, unless by his special permission." 

" I cannot allow looting," he said. " Arms and other 
property taken from the enemy are to be at all times 
reserved for the public service." Brock's example might 
have been followed to advantage in later Canadian cam- 
paigns. " I am calling," he continued, " a district court- 
martial for nine o'clock to-morrow morning, October 13th, 
for the trial of three prisoners, a captain and two subal- 
terns of the 49th and 41st regiments." 

That court-martial was not held. 

On the day before, Major Evans and Colonel Macdonell 
had waited upon Van Rensselaer, with a letter from 

130 



Brock's Last Council 

Brock proposing " an exchange of prisoners of war, to 
be returned immediately, on parole." The fact of no reply 
having been received to this, Brock regarded as ominous. 

" I firmly believe, gentlemen," he proceeded, and his 
confidence and courage was infectious, " that I could at 
this moment, by a sudden dash, sweep everything before 
me between Fort Niagara and Buffalo, but our success 
would be transient. Disaffection and desertion is rife in 
the American camp. Only the other day we saw six poor 
fellows perish in mid-stream. To-day more deserters 
swam the river safely. Our own force, estimating even 
200 Indians under Chief Brant and Captain Norton, 
though I expect less than 100 would be nearer the mark, 
cannot exceed 1,500 men of all arms. These units I have 
collected from Sandwich to Kingston. Many of our men, 
as no one knows better than Quartermaster Nichol, have 
received no pay, are wearing broken shoes — some have 
no shoes at all — no tents and little bedding. It is true 
that they bear the cold and wet with an admirable and 
truly happy content that excites my admiration, but it 
is no less a disgrace to the responsible authorities. Sir 
George Prevost, as you know, has told me ' not to expect 
any further aid ' — the old parrot cry from headquarters, 
' Not a man to spare.' Let me ask the chief of the 
Mohawks, who is present, how many warriors he can 
muster ?" 

John Brant, or Thayendanegea, as he was known among 
the Six Nation Indians, was the hereditary chief. At this 
time he was but a youth of eighteen — a graceful, daunt- 
less stripling, of surprising activity, and well educated. 
At his side sat Captain Jacobs, a swarthy, stalwart brave, 

131 



The Story of Isaac Brock 

famous for his immense strength, and Captain John Nor- 
ton, an Englishman, and chief by adoption only, who, in 
consideration of Brant's youth, was acting as his deputy 
and spokesman. The latter said that since his return 
from Moraviantown, and the hunting season having com- 
menced, many of his braves were absent, but he would 
pledge the Mohawks would muster, when wanted, over 
one hundred tried men. Thanking the chiefs for their 
assurances, Brock continued: 

" The enemy has an army of over 6,000. The four 
twelve-pounders and two hundred muskets captured with 
the Detroit is a serious loss to us. If the Detroit is lost 
to us, however, she is of no further use to the enemy. 
We are, I repeat, greatly outweighted and outnumbered 
by the enemy, both in siege guns and artillery, and have 
no forge for heating shot. I have, as a matter of form, 
written this day to Sir George Prevost, restating my 
anxiety to increase our militia to 2,000 men, but point- 
ing out the difficulties I shall encounter, and the fear 
that I shall not be able to effect my object with willing, 
well-disposed characters. Of one thing, gentlemen, I am 
convinced, that were it not for the number of Americans 
in our ranks we might defy all the efforts of the enemy 
against this part of the Province. 

" As to ' forbearance,' which I am constantly urged by 
Sir George Prevost to adopt, you are entitled to my views. 
While forbearance may be productive of some good, I 
gravely doubt the wisdom of such a policy; but, let me 
add, I may not, perhaps, have the means of judging cor- 
rectly. We cannot, however, disguise the fact we are 
standing alongside a loaded mine. Let us be prepared 

132 



Brock's Last Council 

for the explosion. It may come at any moment. Vigil- 
ance, readiness and promptness must be our watchwords. 
Might I ask you to remember my family motto, ' He who 
guards never sleeps.' Even to-morrow may bring sur- 
prises — such stormy weather as we are having seems 
strangely suitable for covering an attack. 

" I think, gentlemen, if we weigh well the character 
of our enemy, we shall find him disposed to brave the 
impediments of nature — when they afford him a proba- 
bility of gaining his end by surprise, in preference to the 
certainty of meeting British troops ready formed for his 
reception. But do not, because we were successful at 
Detroit in stampeding the United States troops, cherish the 
impression that General Hull is a sample of American 
soldiery. If we are taken by surprise the attack will 
soon be known, for our range of beacons extends from 
the Sugar Loaf to Queenston, from Lundy's Lane to 
Pelham Heights. Signal guns, also, will announce any 
suspicious movement. One word in conclusion. As sol- 
diers you know your duty, and I think you now all under- 
stand the position we are in — as far as I know it. 

" General Sheaffe," he continued, turning to that officer, 
" I am much concerned as to the fate of this town, 
Niagara, if its namesake fort on the other side of the 
river should be tempted to forget the rules of war and 
bombard the private buildings here with hot-shot. How- 
ever, we will do our best to give the invaders, when they do 
come, a warm reception. There are two things, Major," 
looking towards Evans, his brigade-major and intimate 
friend, " that our men must not omit to observe, namely, to 



133 



The Story of Isaac Brock 

' trust God and keep their powder dry/ a most necessary- 
precaution if these storms continue." 



It is worthy of note that while Brock was in conference 
with his staff, expecting invasion any day, General Van 
Eensselaer, at Lewiston, was writing the subjoined brief 
historical despatch to his brigadier-general, Smythe: 

« Sir, — To-night, October 12th, I shall attack the 
enemy's batteries on the Heights of Queenston." 

The weather was tempestuous. Eain clouds shrouded 
the Heights of Queenston in a black pall. The wind 
romped and rioted in the foliage. Brock's estimate of 
the character of the enemy was a masterly one. Van 
Eensselaer was about to verify our hero's prediction. 



134 



BROCK'S MIDNIGHT GALLOP. 
(Original painting by Charles W. Jefferys, O.S.A.) 






The Midnight Gallop 

CHAPTER XXV. 

THE MIDNIGHT GALLOP, 

Well into the half-light of morning, long after the last 
of his staff, Evans, Glegg and Macdonell, had departed, 
Brock sat alone at his headquarters at Fort George, writ- 
ing rapidly. 

On the oak mantel, an antique clock chimed the passing 
of the historic hours, with deep, musical strokes. 

Was it presentiment — a clearer understanding that 
comes to men of active brain and acute perception, during 
solitary vigil in the silence of night, when, with heart and 
soul stripped, they stand on the threshold of the great 
divide — that whispered to this " knight of the sword " his 
doom ? Was it this clearer comprehension that caused our 
hero to bow his head as a faint message from an unseen 
messenger reached him ? With a sigh of resignation he 
arose from the unfinished manuscript and passed on to 
his bedroom. 

Boom ! Boom ! Boom ! 



A muffled, indistinct roar, a confusion of sounds, aroused 
the half-conscious sleeper. Brock sprang from his couch, 
partly dressed. 

The antique clock chimed one — two — three ! 
" Listen," he muttered to himself, " that was not a 

135 



The Story of Isaac Brock 

signal gun. Surely it was the sound of sustained firing." 
As he unlocked the outer door, opening on the barrack- 
square, the sky above faintly aglow with the light of warn- 
ing beacons, the low, steady roll of musketry and louder 
roar of distant cannon convinced him that this was far 
more serious than "the war between sentries." 

" My good Porter," he said, speaking calmly to his 
excited servant, who, himself awakened, came rushing to 
his master, " have Alfred saddled at once while I com- 
plete dressing, and inform Major Grlegg and Colonel 
Macdonell that I am off up the river to Queenston." 

In another minute Isaac Brock was in the saddle. 

As he passed through the gates, thrown open by the 
sentry, a dragoon, mire from head to foot from furious 
riding, handed him a despatch announcing that the enemy 
had landed in force at Queenston. A second later, in 
response to the pressure of his knees, his horse was carry- 
ing our hero at a wild gallop across the common that 
separated his quarters from the upper village. 

Day was near to breaking. The earth steamed from 
the heavy rain. Passing objects rose out of the dark 
mists, magnified and spectral. 

At the residence of Captain John Powell, Brock reined 
up. The household was astir, aroused by the ominous 
roar of artillery carried down by the river from the gorge 
above. He stayed, without dismounting, long enough to 
take a cup of coffee brought to him by General Shaw's 
daughter — a " stirrup cup " — his last. Then, giving his 
charger the spur, he rode away to death and distinction, 
tenderly waving a broken good-bye to the sad-eyed woman 
at the porch. This was his betrothed, who faintly fluttered 

136 



The Midnight Gallop 

her kerchief in weeping farewell to the gallant lover she 
would never see again. 

Brushing his eyes and urging his big grey to greater 
speed, " Master Isaac," eager to reach the scene of trouble, 
struck across the village, his horse's hoof-beats bringing 
many a citizen to the door to " God speed him." Some 
came out to follow him, and many a good wife's face was 
pressed to the window to watch " The General ! God bless 
and spare him," as he headed his charger for the Queens- 
ton Road and Brown's Point. Among the more zealous 
hastening after Brock were Judge Ralph Clench and a 
few old half-pay officers of His Majesty's service, who 
hurried to Queenston to range themselves in the ranks of 
the volunteers. Others joined as the signal guns and the 
bells of the church of St. Mark's and the court-house 
spread the alarm. 

His road lay up hill. Seven miles back from the shore 
of Lake Ontario stretched the height of land, extending 
west from the river to the head of the lake — a gigantic 
natural dam, over 300 feet high and twenty miles through ; 
a retaining wall of rock, the greatest original fresh-water 
barrage in the world. 

He paused a moment at Frields to order the militia 
company there to follow. Close to Brown's Point he met 
another galloper, S. P. Jarvis, of the York volunteers, who 
was riding so furiously that he could not check his horse, 
but shouted as he flew by, " The Americans are crossing 
the river in force, sir." Jarvis wheeled and overtook the 
General, who, without reining up, slackened his speed suffi- 
ciently to tell the rider not to spare his horse, but to hurry 
on to Fort George and order General Sheaffe to bring up 

137 



The Story of Isaac Brock 

his entire reserve and let loose Brant's Indian scouts. A 
mile or so farther on, Jarvis met Colonel Macdonell, in 
hot pursuit of their beloved commander. The aide, in his 
haste, had left his sword behind him, and borrowed a less 
modern sabre from Jarvis, who continued his mad gallop 
towards Fort George, little thinking he had seen the last 
of his gallant General and the dashing aide, meeting, a few 
minutes later, Major Glegg, also riding post haste to over- 
take the General. 

Meanwhile Brock had halted for a moment at Brown's 
Point, only to learn that Cameron's Toronto company of 
volunteers had already started, on their own initiative, 
up the river. Riding hard, he overtook the excited militia- 
men. Speaking a word to the officer in charge, he wheeled 
his horse in the direction of the Heights, calling upon 
the detachment in his well-known voice, and in a way 
that never failed to exact obedience: 

" Now, my men, follow me." 

The east showed signs of approaching day, and Brock, 
only two miles from Queenston, was treated to a spectacle 
that quickened his pulses. Shells were bursting on the 
mountain side above the village. The shadows of the 
dying night were streaked with the light from an inces- 
sant fire of small-arms. Grapeshot and musket-balls were 
ploughing up inky river and grim highland. At Vroo- 
man's battery, on Scott's Point, guarded by Heward's 
volunteer company from Little York, and some of Hatt's 
company of the 5th Lincoln militia, a mile from Queens- 
ton, the twenty-four-pound shells from the gun, mounted 
en barbette, which commanded at long range both landings, 

138 



The Midnight Gallop 

were leaving behind them furrows of fire in the black 
gorge. The big gun was pouring a continuous stream of 
destructive metal upon the American boats that were 
attempting the passage of the river within the limited 
zone of its fire.* 

Fort Gray, above Lewiston, was fairly belching flames, 
to which the isolated eighteen-pounder on the Queenston 
redan was roaring an angry and defiant response. Brock's 
trained ear recognized the wicked barking of the brass 
six-pounders, under Dennis of the 49th, mingling with 
the occasional boom of the twenty-four-pound carronade 
below the village. 

The village of Queenston consisted of a small stone- 
barracks and twenty or more scattered dwellings in the 
midst of gardens and orchards. To Brock's right a road 
from the landing led to St. David's, from which, at almost 
right angles, an irregular branch roadway wound up the 
Heights. The adjacent table-land west of the village was 
dotted with farm-houses, partly surrounded by snake- 
fences and an occasional stone wall. 

Above Vrooman's he was joined by his two aides. Here 
he met a few men, shockingly torn and bleeding, crawling 
to the houses for shelter, and quite a number of prisoners, 
and was told that the enemy was routed. All killed or 
taken prisoners ! Very skeptical, but increasing his speed, 
our hero rode into the village, and, though stained and 
splashed with mud from stirrup to cockade, he was recog- 
nized, and welcomed by the men of the 49th with a ringing 
cheer. 

♦This gun is credited with having fired 160 shots during the 
engagement. 

139 



The Story of Isaac Brock 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

THE ATTACK ON THE REDAN. 

Checking his reeking horse for a moment, Brock acknow- 
ledged with a smile the salute, saying to the men who had 
leaped to his side, " Take breath, my good fellows ; you 
will need all you have, and more, in a few minutes," words 
which evoked much cheering. Then he breasted the rise 
at a canter, exposed to a galling enfilading fire of artillery, 
and running the gauntlet of the sniping of some invisible 
marksmen, reached the redan, half-way to the summit. 
Here he dismounted, threw his charger's reins to a gunner, 
and entered the enclosure. 

From the loftier elevation of the Heights a still more 
striking scene confronted him. He saw, in the yellow 
light, battalion after battalion drawn up in rear of the 
Lewiston batteries, across the river, only two hundred 
yards wide at this point, awaiting embarkation. Other 
soldiers he saw crouching in the batteaux on the river, 
while an unknown number had already crossed and were 
in possession of Queenston landing. Round and grape 
shot from the enemy's batteries were searching the banks 
and scourging the village, while shells from mortars at 
short range came singing across the river. He saw a boat 
with fifteen American soldiers smashed in mid-stream by 
a six-pounder from Dennis's battery, and watched the 
mangled bodies drift into the gloom. 



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The Attack on the Redan 

Having surveyed the position rapidly, ignorant of the 
concealed movements of the enemy's troops, Brock at a 
first glance pronounced the situation favourable. 

The crest of the Heights was wooded densely. The 
leaves still clung to the trees in all the spangled glory of 
autumn, and the thickets afforded far too safe cover for 
the American sharpshooters. In answer to his inquiry, 
Williams, in charge of the light company of the 49th, told 
him that at least 350 United States regulars and 250 
militia must already have been ferried over. In the 
chilling gray of dawn, four boats, filled with armed men, 
had been seen crossing the river, which here had a four- 
mile current. The head of a column had also been seen 
above the river bank at the Queenston landing. The 
soldiers from the three batteaux, previously landed below 
Hamilton's garden, had already been met by Dennis's men, 
who had killed several and captured others. Later, more 
boats had come ashore, knocked out of commission by 
Vrooman's big gun and the six-pounders. Their crews 
had surrendered. Some of these Brock had met. Many 
more, however, had landed safely, hidden by the shadows, 
and were doubtless then awaiting a chance to emerge from 
ambush. 

In answer to Brock's question as to whether there was 
a chance of the Height being scaled direct from the river, 
Williams repeated what he had already reported at the 
council meeting, that the scouts insisted that the Heights 
could not be climbed from the landing. The cliffs, over 
three hundred feet high, rose almost vertically from the 
water, and the denseness of the shrubs, tangle and over- 
hanging trees, anchored in the clefts, rendered it impos- 

141 



The Story of Isaac Brock 

sible for any but exceptionally active and resolute men, 
and then only as a forlorn hope, to reach the summit. 
Projecting ledges of rock also blocked the way. A large 
body of men had been seen before daybreak stealing 
across the foot-hills, but had evaded pursuit. He believed 
they had fled to the Black Swamp, four miles distant. 

Seeing that Dennis needed every possible support at the 
landing, Brock ordered Williams and his men to proceed 
to his assistance, and on the latter's departure our hero 
and his aides were left alone with the eight gunners. 



The rain was gradually ceasing. Shafts of light from 
an unseen sun tinged the edges of the smoke-coloured 
clouds with amber and rose. A few spent musket-balls fall- 
ing about the enclosure aroused Brock's suspicions. He 
was watching, from behind the earthen parapet, the flight 
of the shells discharged by the eighteen-pounder, and, 
seeing that they burst too soon, turned to the gunner. 

" Sergeant, you are misjudging your time and distance ; 
we must not waste powder and shot. Your shells are 
bursting too soon. Try a longer fuse." 

The words were barely out of our hero's mouth when 
there was a rolling crash of musketry, accompanied by wild 
shouts, and a shower of bullets flew zipping over their 
heads. Shooting high is the invariable shortcoming of 
excited marksmen. A moment later the heads of a large 
force of American riflemen rose from the rocky ambus- 
cade above and behind them. The next instant the 
enemy was in full charge, evidently bent on capturing 
both the General and the redan. 

142 



The Attack on the Redan 

Brock saw that resistance would be madness. To save 
the gun and escape capture must be the " double event." 
Seizing a ramrod, he ordered an artilleryman to spike the 
gun, gave the command to retreat, telling the men to 
" duck their heads," fearing another discharge, and, lead- 
ing his horse, followed by Macdonell and Glegg and the 
firing squad of eight artillerymen, rushed down the slope. 

For a clearer understanding of the situation — a better 
concej)tion even than our hero had when, to escape capture 
and save the lives of his men, he was compelled to abandon 
the redan — we must visit Van Rensselaer's camp at 
Lewiston. 



14S 



The Story of Isaac Brock 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

VAN RENSSELAER'S CAMP. 

After midnight, on the morning of the 11th, the United 
States General, Van Rensselaer, believing, as he wrote, 
" that, Brock with all his disposable forces, had left for 
Detroit," launched from the Lewiston landing, under cover 
of the pitch darkness, thirteen boats capable of carrying 
340 armed men. 

To Lieutenant Sims, " the man of the greatest skill 
in the American service," was entrusted the command. 
Sims entered the leading boat, and vanished in the gloom. 
Whether he had taken all the oars with him, as reported, 
or whether the furious storm and the sight of the whirling 
black waters had frozen the hearts of the troops, must 
remain a mystery. The other boats did not follow. 

Meanwhile, 350 additional regulars and thirty boats 
had arrived from Four Mile Creek. Flying artillery came 
from Fort Niagara, with still more regulars, and part of 
Smythe's brigade from Buffalo. Troops, as Brock's spies 
had truly reported, now overflowed the United States 
army headquarters — three more complete regiments from 
New York and another from Fort Schlosser. Lewiston 
bristled with bayonets. The entire expeditionary force 
was in command of Colonel Solomon Van Rensselaer, a 
militiaman, between whom and the officers commanding 
the regular troops much jealousy and great friction 
existed. Both branches of the service were determined 

144 



Van Rensselaer's Camp 

to monopolize whatever credit might ensue. A storm, 
more furious than ever, prevailed for twenty-eight hours. 
The men sulked in their tents. 

On the night of the 12th, the storm having abated, 
though the sky was black as ink, added numbers having 
developed greater courage, Van Rensselaer resolved on 
another attempt. He secretly notified Brigade-Major 
Smythe, in command at Buffalo, that in accordance with 
the letter reproduced in a previous chapter, he would 
storm the Heights of Queenston that night. With 
experienced river men as pilots, with picked crews, and 
protected by the big guns at Fort Gray, 600 men, with 
two pieces of light artillery, in thirteen boats, in the 
grim darkness of the morning of the 13th — a sinister 
coincidence — drew up in silence on the wharf. They 
comprised the first detachment of 850 regulars and 300 
militia, the advance attacking party — " the flower of 
Wadsworth's army " — embarked to " carry the Heights 
of Queenston and appal the minds of Canadians." 

Let us trace the fulfilling of Van Rensselaer's boast. 

The regulars crossed first, almost out of the line of 
fire of the British batteries, and under cover of six of the 
enemy's field-guns that completely commanded the Cana- 
dian shore. Some of the boats of this flotilla effected, as 
we know, a landing above the rock, still visible at the 
water's edge, under the suspension bridge. Here they 
disembarked their fighting men — the 13th regulars and 
some artillery — and, under Van Rensselaer, attempted to 
form. The empty boats recrossed the river to ferry over 
more soldiers. 

10 145 



The Story of Isaac Brock 

A sentry of the 49th — our hero's regiment — overheard 
voices and tramping of feet. Scenting danger, he ran, 
without firing, to alarm the main guard. 

In a few minutes Dennis advanced upon the landing 
place with forty-six men of his own company and a few 
militia, and discharged a murderous volley, leaving Colonel 
Van Rensselaer, with eight officers and forty-five men, 
killed or wounded. The enemy retreated to the water's edge 
for shelter, confused and shivering. The Lewiston bat- 
teries at once opened fire on the redan on Queenston 
Heights. The position of Dennis being thus revealed 
to Dearborn's gunners, they immediately turned their 
battery of six field-pieces upon his handful of men, and 
the position proving untenable, he withdrew to the shel- 
ter of the village, on the lip of the hill, still continuing 
to fire downwards on the invaders. 

Vrooman's battery then opened fire, and Crowther 
brought his two " grasshoppers " — small three-pounders 
— to sweep the road leading to the river. 



146 



A Foreign Flag Flies on the Redan 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

A FOREIGN FLAG FLIES ON THE REDAN. 

It was the crackling of the grenadiers' muskets, the 
bellowing of Vrooman's big gun, the cannonade of the 
twenty-four-pounders of the Lewiston batteries, the roar 
of the eighteen-pounder in the British redan, and the 
streak of crimson light from the long line of beacons 
which rent the sky from Fort Erie to Pelham Heights, 
that had wakened the citizens of Niagara and aroused 
Brock from his brief repose. 

Captain Wool, of the 13th U. S. regulars — Van 
Rensselaer being wounded in six places — hurried his 
men under the shelter of the overhanging rocks, keeping 
up an intermittent fire, and waited for reinforcements. 
For almost two hours this desultory firing continued. 
With the cessation of the storm and arrival of broad day- 
light, six more boats attempted to reach the Queenston 
landing. One boat was sunk by a discharge of grape 
from Dennis's howitzer; another, with Colonel Fenwick, 
of the U. S. artillery, was swept below the landing to 
a cove where, in the attack by Cameron's volunteers that 
followed, Fenwick, terribly wounded, was, with most of 
his men, taken prisoner. Another boat drifted under 
Vrooman's, and was captured there, while others, more 
fortunate, landed two additional companies of the 13th, 
forty artillerymen and some militia. The shouts of the 
fighters and screams of the wounded were heard by the 

147 



The Story of Isaac Brock 

hundreds of spectators who were parading the river bank 
at Lewiston, all ready to witness " the humiliation of 
Canada." 

General Van Rensselaer had commanded that the 
" Heights had to be taken." Wool, a gallant soldier, 
only twenty-three, suffering from a bullet that had passed 
through both his thighs — no superior officer coming to his 
support — volunteered for the duty. He expressed his 
eagerness to make the attempt. Gansfort, a brother 
officer of Wool's, had been shown by a river guide a 
narrow, twisting trail, used at times by fishermen, lead- 
ing to the summit. This he pointed out to Wool as a 
possible pathway to the Heights, where a force of deter- 
mined men might gain the rear of the British position. 
Wool, at the same time, had also been informed that 
Williams, hitherto on the Heights, had been ordered to 
descend the hill to assist Dennis — which was Brock's 
first command on reaching the redan. Followed by Van 
Rensselaer's aide, who had orders " to shoot every man 
who faltered," Wool at once commenced the ascent, leaving 
one hundred of his men to protect the landing. 

Picked artillerymen led the way. Concealed by rock 
and thicket, and unobserved by the British — the trail 
being regarded as impassable — they reached the hill-top, 
only thirty yards in rear of the solitary gun in the redan. 
The noise of their movements was drowned by the crash 
of the batteries, which reduced Hamilton's stone house 
to ruins and drove Crowther and his small gun out of 
range. The shells from the enemy's mortars rained upon 
the village, and his field-pieces subjected the gardens and 
orchards of Queenston to a searching inquisition. 

148 



A Foreign Flag Flies on the Redan 

On reaching the summit, Wool, when the last straggler 
had arrived, formed his men, without losing a minute, 
and emerging from ambush, fired a badly-aimed volley 
at the astonished Brock and his eight gunners, and with 
a wild shout rushed down upon the redan. 



When the United States flag was raised over the gun, 
which Wool, to his deep chagrin, found spiked, the troops 
at Lewiston realized that the battery had been taken. 
Their courage returning, they rushed to the boats below, 
hoping to participate in a victory which, while hitherto 
a question in their minds, now seemed beyond all doubt. 

Brock, on regaining the bottom of the slope, seeing that 
the main attack was to be made at Queenston, sent Captain 
Derenzy with a despatch to Sheaffe at Fort George. 

" Instruct Major Evans," he wrote, " to turn every 
available gun on Fort Niagara, silence its batteries, and 
drive out the enemy, for I require every fighting man 
here; and if you have not already done so, forward the 
battalion companies of the 41st and the flank companies 
of militia, and join me without delay." 

Mounting his horse, he galloped to the far end of the 
village. Here he held a hurried consultation with the 
few officers present, and despatched Macdonell to Vroo- 
man's to bring up Heward's Little York volunteers at the 
double. He then instructed Glegg to order Dennis, with 
the light company of the 49th, less than fifty strong, and 
Chisholm's company of the York militia, to join him, 
and also to recall Williams and his detachment. When 
these arrived he took command. 

149 



The Story of Isaac Brock 

" Captain Williams," said he, " how many men do you 
muster ?" 

" Seventy, sir, of all ranks," replied Williams ; " forty- 
nine grenadiers and Captain Chisholm's company of 
volunteers." 

" We must make the attempt, then," said the General, 
" to turn the enemy's left flank on the Heights, and this can 
only be done by a round-about way." Then, as Dennis 
joined him, he said, with a shade of vexation on his face, 
" It is a waste of time lamenting mistakes, but the over- 
looking of that pathway was a serious thing. The 
re-taking of the redan must be attempted at all hazards. It 
is the key, you see, to our position. If we wait for all our 
reinforcements the task will only be greater, as it will 
give the enemy time to establish himself in force, and 
when he drills out the spiked gun, the odds against us 
will be greater still." 

Then, after a pause, " We must try and regain that gun 
without a moment's delay. It will be hot work, and means 
a sacrifice, but it is clearly our duty. Macdonell cannot 
be long. How are your men ?" 

" Somewhat fagged, sir," replied Dennis, " and a bit 
hippish. We've had a trying time, but they are ready to 
follow you." 



It has been truly said of Isaac Brock that he never 
allowed a thought of self-preservation or self-interest to 
affect for one instant his conception of duty. He was 
blind at this moment to all personal considerations. He 
made no effort to shelter himself behind any plausible 

150 



A Foreign Flag Flies on the Redan 

excuse that would have been gratefully seized by the 
timid or calculating man, or to fence with his duty. His 
consistency was sublime. " His last moments were in 
clear keeping with his life and his belief." 

" He who thinks in strife 
To earn a deathless fame, 
Must do, nor ever care for life." 

The little band of heroes fell into line, while their 
brother hero addressed them. 

" Men of the 49th," said Brock, " and my brave volun- 
teers, I have heard of your work this morning, and the 
trying circumstances under which you have been fighting. 
Now, my lads, as you know, a large body of the enemy has 
stolen a march on us. They have taken our gun, it is 
true, but they will find it spiked ! It is our duty to re-take 
it. Be prepared for slippery footing. Use every bit of 
shelter, but when we make the final rush give the enemy 
no time to think. Pour in a volley ; fire low, and when it 
comes to in-fighting, use the bayonet resolutely and you 
have them beaten. I know I can depend upon you. 
There is a foreign flag flying over a British 
gun. It must not stay there. . . . Don't cheer now, 
men, but save your breath and follow me." 

There was a cheer, notwithstanding. 



151 



The Story of Isaac Brock 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

THE BATTLE OF QUEENSTON HEIGHTS. 

While these fateful and stirring scenes were being enacted 
at Queenston, a despatch rider arrived from Evans of 
Fort George. Without waiting for further instructions, 
he had, after Brock's departure, with the first glimpse of 
daylight, cannonaded Fort Niagara. This he did with 
typical thoroughness. His fire was returned with interest. 
With a license in direct opposition to the laws of battle, 
the enemy, under Captain Leonard, turned his guns on 
the village of Newark, bombarding public buildings and 
private residences with hot-shot, laying part of the town 
in ashes. This infuriated Evans, and he renewed the 
siege with so much vigour that he compelled the Ameri- 
can garrison to evacuate. A shot from one of his twelve- 
pounders burst within the centre of Fort Niagara and 
decided Leonard to abandon his position in haste, after 
suffering many casualties. 

Under a nasty crackle of musketry, galling and accur- 
ate, which harried the men, already chilled and strung 
up with suspense, the small detachment following the 
courageous Brock from the lower village soon reached the 
stone walls that surrounded a residence at the base of the 
hill. Here the General dismounted, handed his horse to 
an orderly and directed the men to find shelter. A mo- 
ment later, taking advantage of a lull in the firing, he 
vaulted over the wall, and waving his sword above his head, 
shouted to the grenadiers a word of encouragement. They 
answered with a cheer, still following him as he led the 
way up the steep ascent towards the captured battery. 

152 



The Battle of Queenston Heights 

Wool, within the enclosure of the redan, was closely 
watching the steady advance of the small body of resolute 
men breasting the Height. 

The purpose of these men was unmistakable. As they 
drew closer, scarlet uniform and polished bayonet blazed 
and flashed in the sunshine. Having been heavily rein- 
forced, he detached a party of 150 picked regulars, and 
with these moved out to meet the small band of British 
led by Brock. A brief exchange of shots took place, and 
the enemy fell back, firing. 

Though the rain had ceased the trees were gemmed 
with drops that still dripped. The ground was strewn 
with wet leaves, slippery, and affording treacherous foot- 
hold. Progress was slow and laborious. As the hillside 
grew steeper, a man here and there slid, lurched and 
fell. To maintain any semblance of formation was impos- 
sible. The fire grew hotter. Ball and buckshot and half- 
ounce bullets down-poured on them from above. " Death 
crouched behind every rock and lurked in every hollow." 

Had Brock's handful of loyalists been able to rush 
headlong, spurred by lust of conflict, and lock bayonets 
with the enemy, another tale might have been told. But 
the effect of the futile struggle for foothold on the hill- 
side, seamed with slippery depressions, in the teeth of a 
blizzard of lead, soon showed. The bullet-swept ascent 
was a cruel test for men already fagged and faint. As 
for our hero, though storm-beaten, stained with mud, and 
hungry as a wolf, he was still the same indomitable youth 
who had scaled the cut cliffs of Cobo in search of sea- 
gulls' eggs. His vigour and disregard of danger were 
magnificent. His example, splendid. 

153 



The Story of Isaac Brock 

Brock may not have been judicially precautious. Had 
he waited for reinforcements — there were none nearer 
than Fort George — his own life might possibly have been 
preserved. As an alternative he could perhaps have with- 
drawn and sought shelter in the village. But — apart from 
the peril to his own prestige — who would care to estimate 
the ulterior effect upon his men if such an example had been 
set them? These rough Canadian irregulars consisted, as 
they do to-day, of the finest fighting material in the world. 
The law of self-preservation had no place in the litany 
of Isaac Brock. He was a daily dealer in self-sacrifice. 
Besides, this was not the time or place to calculate 
involved issues. He was not a cold-blooded politician, 
nor was he an opportunist; he was merely a patriot and 
a soldier fighting for hearth and home, for flag and coun- 
try. It was not an issue that could be left to arbitration in 
the hereafter, or threshed out by judge and jury. The 
situation called for instant action. To do his obvious duty 
rather than to know it, seemed to our hero the only honor- 
able exit from the dilemma, even though it resulted in his 
own undoing. 

Not until the dead are mustered by the God of hosts — 
at the last roll-call — will this noble soldier's conception of 
duty and his sacrifice be truly appraised. 

God and the right was carved deep in the heart of 
Isaac Brock. Though he felt for his men, it was in a 
compassionate, not a weak way. War without bloodshed 
was inconceivable. He had been trained in an age and 
in a school that regarded blood-shedding in the protection 
of the right as wholly justifiable, as it was inevitable. Is 
there any change in respect to the application of this 

154 



The Battle of Queenston Heights 

doctrine to-day ? For himself he had no compassion what- 
ever. His faith in the cause compelled him to fight to 
a finish. He was not of the potter's common clay of 
which fatalists are made. How many of these faithful 
fellows, he wondered, as his alert mind rapidly reviewed 
the present and recalled the past — Canadian and Celt, 
Irish and Anglo-Saxon, Protestant and Catholic, whom 
" neither politics, sect or creed could, in such a crisis, 
keep apart " — would leave their bodies to bleach on that 
hill-side? How many of them were destined to yield 
their lives for honour's sake, to die with their valour 
unrecorded in the defence — in the case of numbers of them 
— not of their own, but of their brother's rights ? 

The next second he was wondering what was doing at 
St. Peter's Port or London. It would be noon there. 
Were the good brothers and sister thinking of " Master 
Isaac " at that moment ? Then, swifter than light, he 
was at Niagara, and the bowed figure of a woman at 
a porch, with pale, upturned face, who that morning had 
bade him a silent farewell, rose before him — surely it 
was years ago — the woman to whom he was betrothed. 
Then, in a flash, he turned to see some wavering figures 
around him, some of his own men — not a few wounded — 
who faltered and shrank from the screaming buckshot, 
and dropped to the rear. 

The soldier awoke. 

" This is the first time," he shouted, " I have ever seen 
the 49th turn their backs ! Surely the heroes of Egmont 
will never tarnish their record !" 

The rebuke stung. The panting ranks closed up. 

155 



The Story of Isaac Brock 



CHAPTER XXX. 

THE DEATH OF ISAAC BROCK. 

At this moment Colonel Macdonell, excited and eager to 
participate, reached the foot of the mountain at the head 
of the supports for which the General had despatched him. 
These consisted of about thirty of Heward's flank com- 
pany of militia and thirty of the 49th — almost breathless 
and much exhausted, having run most of the way. Brock's 
small force — those actually at his side — were Chisholm's 
and Cameron's companies of the Toronto and York volun- 
teers — a mere handful of perhaps eighty all told. These, 
together with Macdonell's men, who were at the foot of 
the hill on the right, now numbered less than 190 of 
all ranks. 

For an instant there was a pause. Brock spoke hur- 
riedly to his aide. 

" If Williams and Macdonell can but outflank the 
Americans on the summit and scale the mountain in 
rear of the redan on the right, nothing can prevent our 
driving them out. Our place is here." 

" But, General," interposed his aide, who worshipped 
his commanding officer, " I pray you, let me lead, or at 
least do take proper precautions. If you are wounded, 
think what may befall us." 

" Master Glegg," hurriedly replied Brock, " I must 
remain at the head of these men. Duty and desire compel 
me. Should I fall, there are others not less competent." 

156 



DEATH OF ISAAC BROCK. 
(Original painting by Charles W. Jefferys, O.S.A.) 



The Death of Isaac Brock 

A half smile, a touch of the arm, and the two men 
separated. A long separation. 

Deceived by the scarlet uniforms of the militia flank 
companies, Wool believed that the attacking party was com- 
posed exclusively of regulars, so steady was their advance. 
His own force now consisted of 500 men, over 300 of 
whom were regulars. Notwithstanding his much greater 
strength and vastly superior position, being protected by 
artificial brush-shelters and logs, and the withering fire 
with which he met the dogged progress of the British, 
his flanks, pressed by Williams and Macdonell, began to 
shrink. The moment was a critical one for our hero. 

The supreme effort must be made. 

Glancing below, Brock, even at that instant, for a fleet- 
ing moment was conscious of the beauty of the country 
spread beneath him. Almost as far as eye could reach 
extended an immense, partly pastoral plain, studded with 
villages, groves, winding streams, cultivated farms, 
orchards, vineyards and meadows. In places a dense 
forest, decorated with autumn's mellow tints, and fur- 
rowed by the black gorge of the Niagara, stretched to the 
horizon. Across all, shadows of racing clouds gave emphasis 
to the brilliant flood of sunshine. No fairer scene ever 
greeted the eye of man. The entire landscape breathed 
peace. Above it, however, in detached masses, hung lurid 
billows — the smoke of battle. . . . The serene vision 
faded, and in its place, in brutal contrast, came cruel, 
imperious bugle calls, the metallic rattle of fire-arms, the 
deep thunder of artillery, the curdling cry of wounded men. 

Isaac's senses were insulted by the carnage of war. 



157 



The Story of Isaac Brock 

He now noticed that the supports, led by his plucky 
aide at the foot of the hill, were nagging. He shouted 
back, " Push on, York Volunteers !" 

Brock's robust figure was a conspicuous object for 
the American riflemen. While telling his men to take 
advantage of every bit of shelter, he paid little attention 
to himself. His uniform, his position at the head of his 
men, his loud words of command, stamped him a man 
of mark, a soldier of distinction, a special target for 
Wool's sharpshooters. 

So far he had escaped the hail of shot by a miracle. 
Picking his footsteps — it was treadmill work — he sprang 
forward, urging on his men by word and gesture. 

A deflected bullet struck the wrist of his sword arm. 
The wound was slight. He again waved his sword, smiling 
his indifference and still speaking words of encouragement. 

They were getting at close quarters now. The redan 
was less than fifty yards above. 

He was calling to those nearest him to hold their fire 
a moment, to prepare to rush the enemy and use their 
bayonets, when, from a thorn thicket, an Ohio scout, 
Wilklow by name, one of Moseley's riflemen, stepped 
forward, and, singling out his victim, deliberately aimed 
at the General. Several of the 49th, noticing the man's 
movement, fired — but too late. The rifleman's bullet 
entered Brock's right breast, tore through his body on 
the left side, close to his heart, leaving a gaping wound. 



158 




BROCK'S COAT WORN AT OUEENSTON HEIGHTvS. 
Showing hole made by entry of bullet. 



The Death of Isaac Brock 

Brock sank slowly to the ground, quite sensible of his 
grievous fate. A grenadier, horribly mutilated, fell 
across him. To those who ran to aid our hero, anxious to 
know the nature of his injury, he murmured a few 
broken sentences and — turned to die. 

He tried to frame messages to loved ones, and then, 
more audibly, as he gallantly strove to raise his head to 
give emphasis to his last faltering words — the same Isaac 
Brock, unmindful of self and still mindful of duty — he 
said, " My fall must not be noticed, nor impede my brave 
companions from advancing to victory." 

And with a sigh — expired. 

Thus died General Sir Isaac Brock, defender and 
saviour of Upper Canada. Died the death he would have 
selected, the most splendid death of all — that of the hero 
in the hour of victory, fighting for King and country, for 
you and me, and with his face to the foe. 

Our hero had passed his last milestone. 

For a brief space the body of Isaac Brock rested where 
it had fallen, about one hundred yards west of the road 
that leads through Queenston, and a little eastward of an 
aged thorn bush. 

Above the dead soldier's head, clouds, sunshine and 
rustling foliage; beneath it, fallen forest leaves, moist 
and fragrant. About the motionless body swayed tussocks 

159 



The Story of Isaac Brock 

of tall grass and the trampled heads of wild-flowers. The 
shouts of the regulars, the clamor of the militia, the shrill 
war-cry of the Mohawks, and the organ notes of battle, 
were his requiem. Then the corpse was hurriedly borne 
by a few grief-stricken men of the 49th to a house in the 
village, occupied by Laura Secord — the future heroine of 
Lundy's Lane — where, concealed by blankets — owing to 
the presence of the enemy — it was allowed to remain for 
some hours, unvisited. 

Later in the day Major Glegg, Brock's faithful aide — the 
brave Macdonell, in extreme agony, lay dying of his 
wounds — hastened to the spot, and finding the body of 
his lamented friend undisturbed, conveyed it to Niagara, 
" where it was bedewed by weeping friends whose hearts 
were agonized with bitterest sorrow." 



160 



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SUPPLEMENT 



AFTER BROCK'S DEATH. 

The " Story of Isaac Brock " would be incomplete without an 
epitome of the events that terminated the Battle of Queenston 
Heights and resulted in an overwhelming victory for the British. 

General Brock was killed in action at about half-past seven 
on the morning of October 13th, 1812. His body was removed 
from Government House, Niagara, to a cavalier bastion at Port 
George, for final sepulture. This bastion was selected by Major 
Glegg, it being the one which Brock's own genius had lately sug- 
gested — the one from which the range of an observer's vision 
covered the principal points of approach — and had just been 
finished under his daily superintendence. 

After he fell, the handful of men who were with him, overcome 
by his tragic end, overwhelmed by superior numbers and a 
hurricane of buckshot and bullets, wavered, and though Dennis 
attempted to rally them, fell back and retreated to the far end 
of Queenston village. Here, about two hours later, Colonel 
Macdonell, Brock's aide, collected and reformed the scattered 
units, and made another bold dash to rescale the heights and 
retake the redan. A detailed account of the incidents that 
followed in dramatic succession would fill a book. 

With the cry of "Revenge the General!" from the men of the 
49th, Macdonell, on Brock's charger, led the forlorn attack, 
supported by Dennis. At the same moment, Williams, with his 
detachment, emerged from the thicket, shouting to his men, 
" Feel firmly to the right, my lads ; advance steadily, charge 
them home, and they cannot stand you." The two detachments 
then combined, and Macdonell ordering a general advance, they 
once more breasted the ascent. 

The enemy, over four hundred strong, but without proper 
formation, fired an independent volley at the British as they 
approached to within thirty yards of the redoubt. This was 
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responded to with vigour, and grenadiers and volunteers, in 
response to brave Macdonell's repeated calls, charged fiercely on 
Wool's men, now huddled in disorder around the eighteen- 
pounder. Some of them started to run towards the river bank. 
One American officer, Ogilvie, of the 13th regulars, thinking the 
situation hopeless, raised his handkerchief on his sword-point 
in token of surrender. Wool, a soldier of different calibre, tore 
it down, and a company of United States infantry coming at 
that moment to his assistance, he rallied his men. 

The momentary advantage gained by Macdonell's small band 
of heroes was lost, and in the exchange of shots that followed, 
Macdonell's horse — Brock's charger — was killed under him, while 
he — his uniform torn with bullets — was thrown from the saddle 
as the animal plunged in its death struggle — receiving several 
ghastly bullet wounds, from which he died the following day, 
after enduring much agony. Williams, a moment later, fell 
desperately wounded; Dennis, suffering from a severe head 
wound, at first refused to quit the field, but Cameron having 
removed the sorely-stricken Macdonell, and Williams having 
recovered consciousness and escaped, the dispirited men fell back, 
retreated down the mountain at Parrott's Tavern, retiring upon 
Vrooman's battery. Here they awaited, unmolested, until two in 
the afternoon, the arrival of reinforcements from Fort George. 
The fight, though short, had been furious and deadly. Americans 
and British alike were glad to take breath. 

Meanwhile, unobserved, young Brant, with 120 Mohawk Indians, 
had scaled the mountain, east of St. David's, outflanking the 
Americans, and hemmed them in until Captains Derenzy, of the 
41st, and Holcroft, of the Artillery, arrived with the car-brigade 
from Fort George and trained two field-guns and a howitzer 
upon the landing. Merritt, with a troop of mounted infantry, 
at the same time reached the village by the Queenston road. 
This movement, which was a ruse, deceived the enemy, who at 
once redisposed his troops in readiness for an attack from this 
new quarter. 

The American commander was ignorant of the fact that General 
Sheaffe — with four companies of the 41st, 308 strong, the same 
number of militia, and a company of negro troops from Niagara, 
refugee slaves from the United States — was at that moment 
approaching his rear in the rear of the Indians. The British 

162 



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(From an historical pamphlet.) 



Supplement 



advanced in crescent-shaped formation, hidden by mountain and 
bush, and were shortly joined by a few more regulars and by 
two flank companies of the 2nd regiment of militia from 
Chippewa. Indeed, many persons of all ranks of life, even 
veterans exempt by age, seized their muskets and joined the 
column to repel the invaders, " unappalled " by Dearborn's 
threats of conquest or by the death of their " beloved hero, Isaac 
Brock." By this movement the British escaped the enfilading 
fire of the Lewiston batteries, the steep ascent of the heights in 
the teeth of the enemy's field-works, and compelled him to 
change front. The British of all ranks numbered less than one 
thousand. 

The United States troops, which had been heavily reinforced, 
consisted at this time of about one thousand fighting men, on 
and about the mountain. This number was slowly supplemented 
by fresh arrivals from Lewiston, encouraged when they saw the 
American flag planted on the redan. The wounded were sent 
across the river. Nearly all of the new arrivals were regulars. 
Colonel Winfield Scott, of Mexican fame, a tried soldier, six 
feet four in his stockings, was now in command, supported by 
a second field-piece and many sharp-shooters. Van Rensselaer, 
narrowly escaping capture, had retreated by boat to Lewiston, 
ostensibly to bring over more troops. Finding the condi- 
tions unfavourable, he did not do so, but sent over General 
Wadsworth, as a vicarious sacrifice, to take command. The gun 
in the redan had been unspiked, and the summit strongly 
entrenched, but as Scott's men betrayed strange lukewarmness, 
orders were given " to shoot any man leaving his post." 

Sheaffe's men having rested after their forced tramp, a few 
spherical case-shot by Holcroft drove out the American rifle- 
men. His gunners had at last silenced the Lewiston bat- 
teries, and finding the river range, sunk almost every boat that 
attempted to cross. The Indians were now ordered to drive in 
the enemy's pickets slowly. Scouting the woods, they routed 
his outposts. 

About four p.m. Captain Bullock, with two flank companies 
of militia and 150 men of the 41st, advanced, and after firing 
a volley in the face of a dense smoke, charged the enemy's right, 
which broke in great confusion. A general advance was ordered, 
and, with wild warwhoops by the Indians and white men, the 

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heights were rushed, Wadsworth's veterans were stampeded, the 
redan retaken at the point of the bayonet, and Scott's command 
forced to the scarp of the cliff overhanging the river. 

The American soldiers, to quote United States historians, now 
" fled like sheep," and scuttled off in all directions. Some raced 
headlong down the main road, seeking shelter under the muzzles 
of Holcroft's guns; some sought refuge in the houses; others 
raced to the landing only to find the boats no longer there. Not 
a few, hot pressed by Brant's avenging Mohawks, threw them- 
selves over the precipice, preferring suicide to the redman's 
tomahawk. Others plunged into the Niagara, essaying to swim 
its irresistible eddies, only to be blown out of the green water 
by Holcroft's grapeshot or sucked down by the river's silent 
whirlpools. 

One boat, with fifty struggling refugees, sank with its entire 
crew. Two others similarly laden were beached below the vil- 
lage, with only one dozen out of one hundred souls still living. 
The river presented a shocking scene. On the face of the water 
men, many maimed and wounded, fought and struggled for 
survival. This pitiful spectacle was actually taking place under 
the eyes of several thousands of American soldiers on the Lewis- 
ton bank, who, almost impossible to believe, and to their lasting 
disgrace, refused to join, or attempt even to succour, their com- 
rades — deaf to all entreaty — allowing them to perish. Every room 
and shack at Queenston was an improvised hospital or morgue, 
filled with the mangled bodies of the quick and dead. 

Cruikshank says 120 wounded United States officers and men 
were taken, of whom thirty died at hospital in Queenston and 
Niagara, while 140 more were ferried across to Lewiston. 
Lossing, the American historian, solemnly records the " fact " 
that " less than 600 American troops of all ranks ever landed 
at Queenston," and that " of these only 300 were overpowered " — 
some of the United States histories of the colonial wars need 
drastic revision — yet 958 American soldiers were taken prisoners 
by the British; "captured by a force," so officially wrote Colonel 
Van Rensselaer, after the battle, " amounting to only about 
one-third of the united number of the American troops." Captain 
Gist, of the U. S. army, placed their own killed at 400. 

Among those who, when defeat was certain, fled to the water's 
edge, after fighting valiantly, was Colonel Winfield Scott, General 

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Wadsworth, and other United States officers. Pursued by the 
Indians, they lowered themselves from shrub to shrub. When 
escape was hopeless, Scott tied the white cravat of his comrade, 
Totten, on his sword point, and with another officer, Gibson, was 
hurrying to present this flag of truce, when two Indians con- 
fronted them on the narrow trail. Jacobs, Brant's powerful fol- 
lower, wrenched Scott's sword away, hatchets were drawn, and 
had not a British grenadier sergeant rushed forward, Winfield 
Scott would have fared badly. 

General Van Rensselaer's defeat was complete and disastrous. 
His chagrin at his failure " to appal the minds of the Canadians " 
was so great that ten days later he resigned his command. 

The account between Canada and the United States at sun- 
down on that day stood as follows: Total American force engaged, 
1,600. Killed and wounded, or sent back across the river, during 
the fight, 500. Prisoners, 73 officers, including two generals and 
five colonels, together with 852 rank and file. Total loss, 1,425 
men, besides the colours of the New York regiment, one six- 
pounder, 815 carbines and bayonets, and 5,950 rounds of ball and 
buckshot. 

The total British force engaged was 1,000. Of these 800 were 
regulars and militia, and 200 Indians. Killed, 14, including one 
major-general and one aide. Wounded and missing, 96. Total 
American loss, 1,425. Total British loss, 110. The next day the 
British General, Sheaffe, Isaac Brock's successor, signed another 
armistice. The second armistice within a period of nine weeks! 

Such is the story of the Battle of Queenston Heights. 

SUBSEQUENT EVENTS OF THE CAMPAIGN OF 1812: 

Afteb Van Rensselaer resigned his command in favour of 
Brigadier-General Smyth, the effect of the British victory upon 
the United States troops at Lewiston was beyond belief. While 
the British soldiers were, with characteristic indifference, hard 
at work at Fort George cutting wood and threshing straw, the 
American soldiers across the river, according to their own his- 
torians, were deserting by the hundreds. Of General Tannehill's 
brigade of 1,414 of all ranks, 1,147 deserted within a few days. 
Twenty of these were officers. 

Had the British been allowed to profit by this demoralization 

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of the enemy and followed up their brilliant successes, they 
could, as Brock predicted, have swept the frontier from 
Chippewa to Sackett's Harbour, and probably prevented a con- 
tinuance of the two years' war. The Sheaffe-Prevost inexcus- 
able thirty days' truce was the very respite the enemy had 
prayed for. More men and more munitions were hurriedly 
despatched to all the United States frontier forts, and renewed 
courage imparted to some of the commanders and their hesi- 
tating brigades. The first to waken up after the expiration of 
this, to the Americans, merciful truce, was General Dearborn, 
who, with 2,000 men, attacked Odelltown, only to be driven 
back to Lake Champlain by de Salaberry. This reverse 
was followed in the last days of November by an attack 
by General Smyth, with 400 of his 4,300 men, upon a four-gun 
battery, defended by sixty-five men, above Garden Island, on the 
Niagara River. Elated with his success, he took for his rally- 
ing cry, "The cannon lost at Detroit — or death!" and again 
crossed the river with thirty-two boats and 900 men, and 
descended upon Fort Erie. Meanwhile, Colonel Bisshopp had 
retaken the fort, with its American captors, and with a handful 
of regulars and militia awaited " annihilation." As Smyth's 
flotilla advanced, Bisshopp poured in a hot fire, sinking two 
boats. This reception did not accord with Smyth's views of the 
ethics of war, and forgetting all about the " lost guns," and dis- 
liking, upon reflection, the idea of " death," he at once turned tail. 
At Buffalo he was publicly pelted by the populace, and for his 
cowardice was dismissed the service by the United States Senate 
without the formality of a trial. Dearborn — strange to say — 
having for the time lost his taste for fighting, went into winter 
quarters, and Canada, in universal mourning for Brock, but still 
confident and undaunted, rested on her arms. The year 1812 
closed without further incident. 

The period thus ended had been a momentous one. Brilliant 
reputations had been made and lost. The blood of many patriots 
had flowed freely, but, as regarded Canada, not in vain, for, in 
the words of the American historian, Schouler, " the war had 
impressed upon the people of the Republic the fact that Canada 
could not be carried by dash, nor pierced by an army officered 
by political generals and the invincibles of peace." 

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THE CAMPAIGN OF 1813. 

Though it would be quite natural to suppose that the story 
of Isaac Brock would end with his death and the victory of 
Queenston Heights, it is well to remember that the influence of 
his triumphs only ceased with the close of the war and the Treaty 
of Ghent, in December, 1814. Hence a resume of the events that 
occurred during 1813 and 1814 is necessary, if a just valuation of 
our hero's achievements is desired. 

Between July, 1812 and November 5th, 1814, " twelve distinct 
invasions of Canada by superior forces of the enemy were 
defeated." Out of fifty-six military and naval engagements 
between the British and U. S. forces, thirty-six were won by 
the British. Though the victories of 1812 were the direct factors 
that brought about a change in the national destiny of Canada, 
" Queenston Heights was not the culminating feat of arms." 
As a result of brooding over these disasters that had befallen 
the " Grand Army of the West," and the " national disgrace " 
of overwhelming defeat, the people of the United States, as a 
whole, independent of politics, " were now " — so write American 
chroniclers — " compelled to become belligerents." 

In consequence of this national thirst for revenge, Generals 
Harrison and Winchester started to look for trouble in January, 
1813, and — were rewarded. Strongly stockaded at Frenchtown, 
on the Raisin River, with a seasoned army, tney invited attack. 
Colonel Procter, with 500 soldiers and 800 Indians under Round- 
head, accepted the challenge, and making a furious attack upon 
Winchester before daybreak, took the General and 405 of his 
" Grand Army " prisoners. Brockville was then raided, and 
fifty-two citizens kidnapped by the U. S. soldiers. During the 
next two years raids of this nature were of frequent occurrence, 
first by one belligerent, then by the other, and with varying 
success. Major Macdonald's capture of Ogdensburg, when he 
took eleven guns and 500 U. S. soldiers, was the next big win 
for Canada. 

In April, to balance the account, General Pike descended 
upon York. The capital of Upper Canada at that time had 
a population of only 1,000, and was weakly garrisoned. While 
the enemy was advancing upon the small fort to the west of 
the village, a powder magazine exploded, killing many on 

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both sides. General Sheaffe, thoroughly alarmed at the pros- 
pect, destroyed his stores, and, after 300 of his force had 
been captured, retreated with the remainder to Kingston — for 
which he was severely censured — and York surrendered. Then 
Procter, inflated by his victory at Frenchtown, and overrating 
his military skill, attacked Fort Meigs, on the Maumee River, was 
badly repulsed, and hopelessly lost all prestige. 

This defeat of the British was followed by Dearborn's assault 
upon Fort George. With 7,000 men behind him, aided by the 
guns of Chauncey's fleet at the river mouth, he captured the 
time-worn fortification, and the Niagara frontier — despite the 
dogged resistance of General Vincent, who had to retreat with 
the crippled remnant of his 1,400 men — was at last in the pos- 
session of the enemy. This win was made more complete by 
General Prevost's belated and, of course, futile attack upon 
Sackett's Harbour. When assured success stared him in the 
face, his flaccid nature suggested retreat, and what might have 
been a signal victory became a disgraceful failure. The position 
of affairs at this time was admirably summed up in a letter 
written by Quartermaster Nichol. " Alas! we are no longer 
commanded by Isaac Brock. . . . Confidence seems to have 
vanished from the land, and gloomy despondency in those who 
are at our head has taken its place." Brock's courage, judgment, 
military skill and personal magnetism were never so much 
needed. 

To offset these reverses, the brilliant victory of the British 
ship Shannon over the American war vessel Chesapeake, in a 
naval duel fought outside Boston harbour, somewhat restored 
British complacence. This was the prelude to another victory 
on land. Vincent, after being bombarded out of Fort George, 
slowly retreated with his broken command towards Burlington, 
cleverly flirting with the enemy, and drawing him farther and 
farther inland, finally reforming his wearied men near Stony 
Creek, sixteen miles from the lake's head. Here the enemy, 
3,000 strong, went into camp. It was here that FitzGibbon — 
General Brock's old-time sergeant-major and faithful protege — 
now in command of a company of the 49th, disguised as a settler, 
penetrated the enemy's camp, and was convinced a night attack 
would be successful. While the advance guard of the enemy 
was driving in the British decoy pickets, 800 of Vincent's force, 

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under Harvey, surprised and charged them in the darkness, cap 
turing two American generals, 120 prisoners, and four cannon, 
without the loss of a man. 

Sheaffe was now transferred to Montreal, and De Rottenberg 
assumed military command in Upper Canada. Three weeks 
later an American, Colonel Boerstler, was ordered to surprise a 
small party of British at Beaver Dams (now Thorold). Lieuten 
ant FitzGibbon, in command, was informed of the proposed attack. 
An heroic woman — Laura Secord — the wife of a wounded militia- 
man at Queenston, and to whose house Brock's body was borne 
after he fell, learned of the pending surprise by overhearing a 
conversation between some American officers. Her resolution 
was soon formed. Despite the fact that twenty miles through 
gloomy forest, filled with hostile Indians, lay between her home 
and the British camp, she tramped the distance unattended, 
though not unmolested, and reached the Stone House in time to 
warn the plucky grenadier. The wily Irishman at once despatched 
a party of Caughnawaga Indians to divert the enemy's attention. 
Advancing with a few soldiers, and finding Boerstler and his force 
drawn up in an opening of the woods, uncertain what to do, he 
boldly ordered that officer to surrender with his entire command 
of 540 soldiers, though he had but forty-seven men to enforce the 
conditions. His demand was instantly complied with. 

To equalize in part this game of international see-saw, Chauncey 
again visited York with fourteen ships, mounting 114 guns, and 
plundered the defenceless capital. 

On Lake Erie, Perry, with nine ships and a total broadside 
of 936 pounds of metal, defeated Barclay's six Canadian ships, 
with a total broadside of 459 pounds. These facts must be taken 
into impartial consideration in weighing the issue. In the west, 
Procter, still suffering from the shock received at Fort Meigs, 
with 407 troops and 800 Indians, retreated up the Thames valley, 
neglecting to burn his bridges in his retreat, with General Har- 
rison and an army of 3,500 men in hot pursuit. The American 
general brought him to bay at Moraviantown, and in the frozen 
swamps the dispirited British, having lost all confidence in 
their fleeing commander, surrendered or escaped. It was here 
that the gallant and high-minded Tecumseh met his death, 
under distressing circumstances. The story was circulated that, 
mortified at Procter's proposed flight, the Shawanese chief was 

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only restrained from shooting that officer by the interference 
of Colonel Elliott. For his conduct and the unexplained disaster 
at Moraviantown, Procter was court-martialed, severely con- 
demned, and suspended from his command for six months. 

The defeat of Procter was counterbalanced, however, by 
Colonel de Salaberry's dramatic victory over General Hampton. 
With 350 French Canadian Voltigeurs he hypnotized 3,500 United 
States troops at Chateauguay. When the fight was hottest the 
gallant Frenchman ordered his buglers to sound the advance, an 
alarming fanfare, accompanied by discharges of musketry from 
various points of the surrounding forest, and the enemy, think- 
ing he was about to be attacked and flanked by superior num- 
bers, was seized with panic, stampeded, and never halted in 
his retreat until he had placed twenty-five miles of country 
between him and the " French devils." After this, occurred the 
historic battle of Chrysler's Farm, on the St. Lawrence, when 
2,000 U. S. regulars under General Boyd, with six field-guns, were 
routed, with a loss of 102 killed and 237 wounded, by a force 
composed of 380 regulars, militia and Indians, under Colonel 
Morrison, and driven back into American territory. 

In the second week of December, General McClure evacuated 
Fort George, but before doing so burned 149 of the public build- 
ings and private houses in Newark (now Niagara), by order of 
John Armstrong, U. S. Secretary of War, compelling 400 women 
and children to seek shelter in the woods, with the thermometer 
ranging around zero. Even Lossing, the American historian, con- 
demned this as " a wanton act, contrary to the usages of war, 
and leaving a stain upon the American character." The outrage 
brought its own punishment within the week. Colonel Murray, 
with 550 soldiers, captured the United States Fort Niagara, kill- 
ing sixty-five men and taking 344 prisoners, and before the close 
of the year, with his heart on fire, the British general, Riall, 
crossed the river with 500 Indians and sacked Lewiston, Youngs- 
town, Tuscarora and Manchester, only desisting from his excus- 
able incendiarism when he had burned Buffalo and laid Black 
Rock in ashes. January 1st, 1814, was ushered in with the Cross 
of St. George floating over the battered ramparts of the American 
Fort Niagara. 

Thus ended the year of our Lord 1813, for ever memorable 
in North American history as a twelve months of almost inces- 

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sant warfare, famous for its records of conspicuous courage, 
much military incompetence, and great and lamentable carnage. 
A year, notwithstanding its sheaf of blunders, that should be 
canonized by all true Canadians, for it was a year that emphasized 
in an astounding manner the pluck and bull-dog tenacity of the 
Canadian militiaman, disclosing his deep love for country that 
resisted unto death the lawless attacks of a wanton invader. 

THE CAMPAIGN OF 1814. 

In March, 1814, General Wilkinson again undertook the forlorn 
hope of capturing Canada, leading 5,000 men against 350 British, 
under Hancock, at Lacolle, on Lake Cbamplain. After five hours 
of red-hot fighting, he was compelled to fall back on Plattsburg. 
A month later Admiral Sir James Yeo and General Drummond, 
with 750 men, landed under the batteries at Oswego, and in the 
teeth of a sustained fire of cannon and musketry, " gathered in " 
that historic town and sixty prisoners. 

To and fro, like a pendulum, swayed the scene of action — to-day 
east, to-morrow west. Colonel Campbell and 500 American sol- 
diers, with nothing better to do, made a bonfire of Port Dover, the 
incident being officially described by the U. S. War Department 
as " an error of judgment." Then General Brown, backed by an 
army of 6,000 U. S. veterans, swooped down like " a wolf on the 
fold " on Fort George, and annexed it and the garrison of 170 
men. The British general, Riall, still possessing the fighting 
mania, and some 1,800 men, locked horns with General Brown 
and 3,000 of his veterans, and the Battle of Chippewa added 
another victory to the American record. The enemy then pil- 
laged St. David's, while Riall — both sides having suffered heavily 
— retreated to the head of Lundy's Lane, a narrow roadway close 
to the Falls of Niagara, and stood at bay. 

Three weeks elapsed, when General Drummond, realizing 
Riall's danger, hastened from York to his assistance, reaching 
Lundy's Lane with 800 men at the moment that General Brown, 
with his reinforced army of over 4,000 men, was within 600 yards 
of the British outposts. A moment later the contest was on, the 
bloodiest and probably the most brilliant battle of the whole 
campaign. It was a bitterly contested fight for seven hours — a 
death struggle for the survival of the fittest. During the first 

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three hours the British force numbered only 1,640, until rein- 
forced by 1,200 additional combatants. All through the long 
hours of the black night the battle waged furiously. Charge 
succeeded charge, followed by the screams of the mutilated and 
the dead silence of the stricken. Over all boomed the muffled 
thunders of Niagara. The big guns, almost mouth to mouth, 
roared crimson destruction. Though bayonets were crossed, and 
the fighting was hand to hand and desperate, and sand and grass 
grew ghastly and slippery with the sheen of blood in the fitful 
moonlight, the British, notwithstanding the advantage in weight 
and numbers of the enemy, held their ground. When day was 
breaking, and the American general found his casualties exceeded 
one thousand, he withdrew his shattered army of invaders to 
Fort Erie. The British loss was 84 killed and 557 wounded. 
Lundy's Lane has been likened to the storming of St. Sebastian 
or the deathly duel at Quatre Bras. Both invaders and defenders 
exhibited heroism — worthy, in the case of the enemy, of a higher 
cause. General Drummond was wounded, and a son of General 
Hull, of Detroit notoriety, was among the killed. 

Though the battle of Lundy's Lane, fought on July 25th, was 
the last great engagement in 1814, and practically ended the war, 
the campaign was not destined to close without an exhibition 
of constitutional timidity on the part of Prevost, the man with 
the liquid backbone. With 11,000 seasoned veterans who had 
campaigned under Wellington, he advanced, September 14th, on 
Plattsburg, garrisoned by only 4,000 Americans, and when vic- 
tory smiled in his face, he actually ordered the retreat. Over- 
come with humiliation, his officers broke their swords, declaring 
they " could never serve again," and sullenly retraced their steps 
to the frontier. This was the crowning episode that destroyed 
Prevost's reputation. Death rescued him from the disgrace of 
court-martial. 

How clear-cut and free from blemish, in contrast with that of 
many of his contemporaries, stands out the brilliant record of 
Isaac Brock. 

The Treaty of Ghent — while satisfactory to the people of 
Canada, bringing as it did a cessation of hostilities, permanent 
peace, and recognition of their rights — was received with mixed 
satisfaction by both political parties in the United States, after 
the first flush of excitement had passed away. " What," the 

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citizens asked each other, " have we gained by a war into which 
the country was dragged by President Madison in defence of free- 
trade and sailors' rights, and in opposition to paper blockades?" 

In the articles of peace, these vexed questions (as related in 
Chapters VIII. and XIV.) — questions which, as we have seen, were 
advanced by the United States Government as the real cause for 
war, were not even mentioned. Some worthy Americans, having 
suffered from the fighting qualities of the Canadian loyalists, pub- 
licly stated that the " declaration of peace had delivered them from 
great peril." In some of the States " the universal joy was so 
great," writes Gay, in his Life of Madison, " that Republicans 
and Democrats forgot their differences and hates and wept and 
laughed by turns in each others' arms, and kissed each other 
like women." 

Another United States historian (Johnston) writes that "peace 
secured not one of the objects for which war had been declared, 
for, though Britain put a stop to the irritating . . . practice 
of searching American vessels flying an American flag, she was 
not bound by the terms of the treaty to do so." In the words 
of another recorder (Taylor), "Britain ceased the practice of 
search, not on account of war, nor of the treaty, but because 
the necessity of doing so had passed away — the European war 
being over." 

WHAT OF CANADA? 

Canada, young as she was in the arts of peace and cruel 
practices of war, while honouring the memory of her heroes 
who had fallen in the splendid struggle against invasion, wasted 
no time in idle tears. The very atmosphere of her high northern 
latitude, the breath of life that rose from lake and forest, prairie 
and mountain, was fast developing a race of men with bodies 
enduring as iron and minds as highly tempered as steel. She 
drew another and a deeper breath, and, forecasting her destiny, 
with shoulders squared and fixed resolve, made ready to create 
an empire of industrial greatness which, under Providence, was to 
rank second to none. 

The influence of Brock's life, achievements and death upon 
the Canadian people was more far-reaching than boy, or even 
man, would suppose. It aroused in the people not only the 

173 



Supplement 



questionable human desire to avenge his death, but an unex- 
pressed resolve to emulate his high manliness, his fixity of pur- 
pose, and his well-ordered courage in defence of the right. 

It remains for the youth of Canada to proudly cherish the 
memory of Isaac Brock, and to never lose an opportunity to 
follow the example he set for them by his splendid deeds. 

" By his unrivalled skill, by great 
And veteran service to the state, 

By worth adored, 
He stood, in high dignity, 
The proudest knight of chivalry, 
Knight of the Sword." 

— Coplas de Manrique. 



174 




BROCK'S MONUMENT. 
Erected 1853. 



APPENDIX. 



EXPLANATORY NOTES ON THE ILLUSTRATIONS. 



No. 1. Frontispiece. 

Major-Oeneral Sir Isaac Brock. 

Reproduction of a copy of the original water-color and chalk 
drawing in the possession of Sir Isaac Brock's great-niece, Miss 
Tupper, of Candee, Guernsey. Copied for Miss Agnes FitzGibbon, 
of Toronto, by Alyn Williams, President of the Miniature 
Painters' Association of Great Britain, 1897, and not hitherto 
published. Adjudged by relatives to be an exact facsimile of 
the original portrait. Miss FitzGibbon writes that " the original 
painting is on similar paper to that on which Major-General 
Brock's last general orders are written, the size corresponding 
unknown. The Williams copy is in the possession of Miss Fitz- 
Gibbon. 

No. 2. Facing Page 11. 
" St. Peter's Port, Guernsey, in IS x 6." 

By an unknown artist. (An x was frequently used for a " " at 
that time.) The original drawing was found among a number of 
unframed prints in a collection obtained by John Naegely, Esq., 
who presented it to the Grange Club, Guernsey, in 1870. It now 
hangs over the mantelpiece in the club reception room. The orig- 
inal is drawn in very fine pencil and water-color — a style of art 
fashionable at that period. Photographed for Miss Agnes Fitz- 
Gibbon in 1902. Brock's father's house, where our hero was born 
— now converted into a wholesale merchant's warehouse — stands 
at the point where two lines, drawn from the spots indicated by 
a cross ( + ) on the margin, would intersect. On the frame above 
the picture are the words, "Guernsey in 18 x 6"; below, "Pre- 
sented to the Grange Club by John Naegely, Esq., 9th March, 
181/0." 

175 



Appendix 



No. 3. Facing Page 27. 

Navy Hall, Remnant of the old " Red Barracks," Niagara, 1797. 

Navy Hall consisted of four buildings erected about 1787. One 
was altered in 1792 for Governor Simcoe. Another was fitted 
up for Parliament when it met at Newark (Niagara), 1792-1797. 
The building here shown was afterwards used for troops and 
called the " Red Barracks." From a photograph in possession of 
Miss Carnochan, Niagara. 

No. 4. Facing Page 32. 

Colonel James FitzGibbon. 

From a photograph in possession of Miss Agnes FitzGibbon, 
of Toronto, his granddaughter. Taken by his nephew, Gerald 
FitzGibbon, now the Rt. Hon. Gerald, Lord Justice FitzGibbon, 
10 Merrion Square, Dublin. Col. FitzGibbon was a protege of 
Brock's. Miss FitzGibbon writes, that the day he enlisted he 
became a sergeant — the " faithful sergeant-major " — then ensign 
then adjutant of the 49th, the " hero of Beaver Dams " in the 
war of 1812; later Clerk of the Legislative Council, Adjutant- 
General of Canada, 1837, and Military Knight of Windsor, 1851. 

No. 5. Facing Page 40. 

Queenston Road, about 182Jf. 

Original water-color painting by Charles W. Jefferys, O.S.A., 
Toronto, from a photograph in possession of Miss Carnochan, 
showing the ruins of William Lyon Mackenzie's printing office, the 
Colonial Advocate, as it appeared twelve years after the battle 
of Queenston Heights. 

No. 6. Facing Page 52. 

Ruins of old Powder Magazine, Fort George. 
Photograph in possession of Miss Carnochan. 

No. 7. Facing Page 64. 

Brock's Cocked Hat. 

Water-color sketch by Harry Carter, Toronto, from photograph 
in possession of Miss Carnochan. (See foot-note on page 64.) 

176 



Appendix 



Persons interested in military matters will observe that the 
white ostrich plumes, which show very slightly, are placed under 
the flaps, only the white edges appearing. This new style of 
feather display was, it is stated, in compliance with an order 
from the War Office, issued shortly before Brock's death. Pre- 
viously the plumes were worn more conspicuously. 



No. 8. Facing Page 75. 

Butler's Barracks (Officers' Quarters), Niagara Common. 

View of officers' quarters. From photograph loaned by Miss 
Carnochan. 

No. 9. Facing Page 96. 

Our Hero meets Tecumseh. " This is a man!''' 

Original black and white drawing by Fergus Kyle, Toronto. 
See page 97. 

No. 10. Facing Page 109. 

Lieut. -Colonel John Macdonell. 

Reproduced, by permission, from A. C. Casselman's " Richard- 
son's War of 1812." From a silhouette in possession of John 
Alexander Macdonell, K.C., Alexandria, Ontario. Colonel Mac- 
donell, who was provincial aide-de-camp to Brock, was member of 
Parliament for Glengarry and Attorney-General of Upper Canada. 
Died, October 14th, 1812, from wounds received at battle of 
Queenston Heights, aged 27. 

No. 11. Facing Page 117. 

Queenston Heights and Brock's Monument. 

As it appeared about 1830, excepting that the present monu- 
ment has been substituted for the old one. Original water-color 
painting by C. M. Manly, A.R.C.A., Toronto, from a photograph in 
possession of Miss Carnochan. 

177 



Appendix 



No. 12. Facing Page 121. 

" Major-General Brock, 18 x 6." 

From a vignette photograph loaned by Miss FitzGibbon, 
Toronto, and now published for the first time in any Life of 
Brock. As doubt has been expressed by some admirers of Brock 
as to the authenticity of this portrait, Miss FitzGibbon's written 
endorsation is here quoted: 

" The photograph is from an original miniature portrait 
of Major-General (afterwards Sir) Isaac Brock, painted by 
J. Hudson, 18 x 6 — 1806 — the date of General Brock's last visit 
to England. The miniature is now in possession of Miss S. 
Mickle, Toronto." 

This full-face vignette is of exceptional interest, all other 
portraits of Brock being in profile, and is likely to challenge 
preconceived notions. 

No. 13. Facing Page 128. 

Powder Magazine, Fort George, Niagara. 

This powder magazine was first built in 1796. Reproduced from 
a photograph in possession of Miss Carnochan, Niagara. 

No. 14. Facing Page 135. 

Brock's Midnight Gallop. 

Original water-color painting by Charles W. Jefferys, O.S.A., 
Toronto. As a matter of fact, the hour of Brock's gallop from 
Fort George to Queenston, as described in Chapter XXV., was not 
" midnight," but shortly before daybreak. It is this time, 
" between the lights," with sky and atmosphere aglow from the 
fire of the batteries, that the artist cleverly depicts. 

No. 15. Facing Page 140. 

Battle of Queenston Heights. 

Photographed in Guernsey, 1902, from a curious old print, 
from a sketch by a brother officer of Brock's — presumably Dennis. 
(See Explanatory Note to No. 18.) Loaned by Miss FitzGibbon. 
Original in possession of Miss Helen Tupper, Guernsey. 

178 



Appendix 



No. 16. Facing Page 156. 
Death of Isaac Brock. 

Original water-color sketch by Charles W. Jefferys, O.S.A., 
Toronto. Shows our hero falling after being hit by the fatal 
bullet fired by an Ohio rifleman, while courageously heading the 
charge in the attempt to recapture the redan. 

No. 17. Facing Page 159. 

Brock's Coat, worn at Queenston Heights. 

From photograph, loaned by Miss FitzGibbon, of the coat worn 
by Brock at Queenston Heights, showing the hole made by the 
entry of the fatal bullet. Photographed, 1902, from the original, 
then in the possession of Miss Tupper, of Guernsey; now, June, 
1909, in the Archives Building at Ottawa. 

No. 18. Facing Page 161. 

Battle of Queenston. 

Facsimile drawing by Harry Carter, Toronto, of an old sketch 
credited to Major Dennis (page 161), which appears on an early 
map of Upper Canada, published by O. G. Steele — presumably of 
Buffalo — in 1840. Underneath the original print are the following 
words, reproduced verbatim: 

" Battle of Queenston. 
After a Sketch by Major Dennis, 
13th Oct., 1813, 
Which ended in a complete victory on the part of the 
British, having captured 927 men, killed or wounded 
about 500, taken 1,400 stand of arms, a six-pounder, 
and a stand of colors." 

(See, also, Explanatory Note to No. 15.) 

No. 19. Facing Page 163. 
Plan of Battle of Queenston. 

Reproduced from an historical pamphlet loaned by Mrs. Currie, 
of St. Catharines, showing the plan of battleground, disposition of 
troops, and topography of adjacent country. 

179 



Appendix 



No. 20. Facing Page 168. 

Taking of Niagara, May 27th, 1813. 

From a sketch which appeared in the Philadelphia Portfolio, 
1817. Interesting from the fact that it is the only picture known 
which shows the churches of St. Mark's and St. Andrew's, Niagara 
(Newark), Canadian side, and the lighthouse which, built in 
1803, stood on the spot where Fort Mississauga now stands. 

No. 21. Facing Page 172. 

Cenotaph, Queenston Heights. 

Erected near the spot where Brock fell. It bears the following 
inscription: 

" Neab this Spot 

Majob-Geneeal 

Sib Isaac Bbock, K.C.B., 

Pbovisional Lieutenant-Govebnob op 

Uppeb Canada, 

Fell on 13th October, 1812, 

While advancing to repel the 

invading Enemy." 

No. 22. Facing Page 174. 

Brock's Monument. 

On October 13th, 1824, the remains of Brock and his gallant 
aide, Macdonell, were removed from the bastion at Fort George 
and placed in a vault beneath the monument which had been 
erected on Queenston Heights by the Legislature to commemorate 
our hero's death. On Good Friday, April 17th, 1840, this monu- 
ment was shattered by an explosion of gunpowder placed within 
the basement by a rebel of 1837 named Lett. In 1853 the corner- 
stone of a new monument, as shown at page 174, the cost of 
which was met by subscriptions given by the people of Canada, 
was erected on the same spot, and on October 13th, forty-one 
years after the British victory at Queenston, and the anniversary 
of Brock's splendid death, the remains of the two heroes were 
re-interred and deposited in two massive stone sarcophagi in the 

180 



Appendix 



vault of the new monument. On the two oval silver plates on 
Brock's coffin was inscribed the following epitaph: 

" Hebe lie the earthly remains of a bbave 
and virtuous hebo, 
Majob-Genebal Sib Isaac Bbock, 

COMMANDEB OF THE BfilTISH FOBCES, 

and pbesident administering 

the govebnment of upper canada, 

Who fell when gloriously engaging the Enemies 

of his Country, 

at the head of the Flank Companies 

of the 49th Regiment, 

in the Town of Queenston, 

on the morning of the 13th October, 1812, 

aged 42 YEARS. 

J. B. Glegg, A.D.C." 



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